Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 2, 2025
Excerpts:
The United States paused weapons supplies to Ukraine, including critical air defense interceptors, artillery shells, missiles, and rockets. Western media outlets reported that sources stated on July 2 that the US pause on weapons supplies to Ukraine will affect dozens of PAC-3 interceptors for Patriot air defense systems, dozens of Stinger man-portable air defense systems, thousands of 155mm high explosive howitzer munitions, over 100 Hellfire air-to-ground missiles, over 250 Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) rockets, dozens of grenade launchers, and dozens of AIM air-to-air missiles. Familiar sources told Politico on July 1 that the United States decided in early June 2025 to withhold some of the aid that the United States promised Ukraine under the Biden administration, but that the decision is only now taking effect.
Politico reported that the halted weapons come from two different streams of Biden administration-era support - weapons from draw-downs of current US stockpiles that the US Department of Defense (DoD) received money to replenish, and the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, in which the United States funds the purchase of weapons for Ukraine from US defense firms. White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly stated on July 1 that US authorities made the decision following a DoD review of US military support to states around the world. 6 defense officials, congressional officials, and other sources told NBC that the Pentagon ordered the pause after a review of US munitions stockpiles.
NBC's defense and congressional sources stated that the United States could hold up the weapons flow to Ukraine until the assessment of US stockpiles is complete but that the United States could extend the pause of military assistance to Ukraine even longer if the weapons are in short supply or if the United States needs to supply them to other parts of the world.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) stated on July 2 that continued deliveries of previously allocated US defense packages are critically important, particularly in order to strengthen Ukraine's air defense. The Ukrainian MFA emphasized that any delay in supporting Ukraine's defense capabilities will encourage Russia to continue its war - and not seek peace. The Ukrainian MFA stated that US-Ukrainian consultations about defense supplies are ongoing at all levels and that Ukraine will speak with the United States about finding mutually beneficial solutions to strengthen Ukraine's defense capabilities.
The decision to suspend military aid to Ukraine will likely force Ukrainian forces to continue to husband materiel, although the exact timing of the planned deliveries that the United States paused remains unclear at this time. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (MoD) stated that Ukraine had not received any official notifications about any suspension or revision to the delivery schedules of the agreed US military aid prior to the US announcement.
The New York Times (NYT) reported that US officials stated that the United States had not scheduled to ship the affected munitions to Ukraine for several months, but the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that US weapons shipments already in Poland were halted as of July 1. A Trump administration official told Politico that the administration had not requested any further aid but that there is enough aid left over from the Biden administration to last Ukraine “several more months.” The deputy commander of a Ukrainian battalion told the Washington Post in an article published on July 2, however, that Ukrainian forces already have to concentrate on holding positions and conserving resources rather than advancing.
Ukrainian forces have had to husband critical materiel, including air defense interceptors, GMLRS rockets, and artillery shells, during previous suspensions of US aid. Ukraine's European partners are increasing their efforts to provide Ukraine with military assistance and the Ukrainian defense industrial base (DIB) continues its efforts to become self-sufficient, but only the United States can provide certain weapons systems at scale and quickly. Ukrainian forces very likely will have to conserve materiel again should the United States continue to suspend weapons deliveries.
The suspension of US aid to Ukraine will likely accelerate Russian gains on the battlefield, as previous US aid suspensions have in the past. Delays in US military aid in Fall 2023 and Winter-Spring 2024 set conditions for Russian forces to make more accelerated battlefield gains than Russian forces had previously been able to make.
Russian forces significantly intensified offensive operations near Avdiivka, Donetsk Oblast in mid-January 2024 and concentrated significant manpower and materiel to their effort to seize the settlement in mid-February 2024 amid the protracted debate in the US (from October 2023 until April 2024) about passing supplemental aid for Ukraine. Ukrainian forces also faced significant artillery constraints during the Russian offensive against Avdiivka, allowing Russian forces to attack under less pressure from Ukrainian counterbattery fire. Russian forces sustained a high tempo of offensive operations after seizing Avdiivka in order to push as far west as possible, and Russian forces subsequently launched offensive operations in Spring 2024 intended to seize Pokrovsk when the suspension of US assistance was still greatly constraining Ukrainian materiel supplies.
ISW assesses that Russian forces advanced roughly 3 km per day between the suspension of US aid to Ukraine on December 6, 2023 and the resumption of aid on April 24, 2024, much of which was in Donetsk Oblast - as compared to the 6 months prior to the December 2023 aid suspension when Russian forces actually lost a total of roughly 203 square km at a rate of 1.1 square km lost per day (due to Ukraine's gains during the 2023 counteroffensive, which was enabled by the US and other allies surging military aid to Ukraine).
The suspension of US aid to Ukraine will reinforce Russian President Vladimir Putin's theory of victory that posits that Russia can win the war of attrition by making slow, creeping advances and outlasting Western support for Ukraine. Putin articulated a theory of victory in June 2024 - and has emphasized this same theory of victory since - that assumes that Russian forces will be able to continue gradual, creeping advances indefinitely and win a war of attrition against Ukrainian forces.
Putin's theory assumes that Russia will be able to outlast pledged Western security assistance and that Ukraine will not acquire and sustain the manpower and materiel needed to prevent these gradual Russian gains or to contest the initiative and conduct counteroffensive operations to liberate Ukrainian territory. The latest US suspension of aid will strengthen Putin's belief that time is on Russia's side and his commitment to delaying negotiations toward a peace settlement and protracting the war.
Russia remains unlikely to make operational-level breakthroughs in the near future. Future Russian gains - even relatively accelerated advances following the suspension of US aid - will likely remain gradual and creeping and result in disproportionately high losses as Russian forces still have not restored operational maneuver to the increasingly transparent battlefield.
ISW has observed geolocated evidence to assess that Russian forces gained roughly 498 square kilometers in May 2025 and roughly 466 square kilometers in June 2025, and Russian gains in January to April 2025 ranged from roughly 175 to 590 square km per month. These Russian gains are remarkably smaller than the 1,265 square km per day that ISW assesses Russian forces were gaining at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in March 2022.
Russia appears, however, to be preparing to undertake likely months- and years-long offensive campaigns - demonstrating the Russian military command's acceptance of continued slow, gradual advances and Putin's belief in his theory of victory. The Russian military command has recently prioritized efforts to attack Ukraine's fortress belt in Donetsk Oblast, a campaign that is likely to take Russia years to achieve at Russian forces’ current tempo. Russian forces may not be able to achieve these objectives by themselves. CNN reported on July 2 that a Ukrainian intelligence assessment stated that North Korea will likely send an additional 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers to Russia in the coming months and that there is a “great possibility” that the North Korean forces will augment Russian forces in Ukraine, including “during large-scale offensive operations.”
Kremlin officials are responding to the US military aid suspension by publicly flouting Putin's theory of military victory as successful - in direct opposition to US President Donald Trump's stated goal of bringing Russia to the negotiating table and achieving a lasting and just peace. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated on July 2 in response to the suspension of US military aid that the “fewer weapons that are supplied to Ukraine, the closer the end of the [ Russian invasion of Ukraine ] is.”
Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) CEO Kirill Dmitriev, who has been heavily involved in diplomatic and rhetorical efforts vis-à-vis Ukraine and the United States, stated that the suspension “raises questions about the West's ability to continue supporting Ukraine.” Russian State Duma Defense Committee Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Zhuravlev suggested that the US military aid suspension will degrade Ukraine's ability to “hold out” against Russian offensive operations and claimed that the United States will not be able to “hide” any future arms deliveries to Ukraine from Russia.
These Russian statements underscore how the Kremlin perceives Putin's theory of victory as it relates to Western - particularly American - military assistance to Ukraine and flout the Kremlin's goal of coercing the United States and other Western states into ceasing military assistance to Ukraine. The Kremlin is capitalizing on the US aid suspension to intensify its messaging that Europe should also cease weapons supplies to Ukraine. Putin had a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron on July 2, the first Putin-Macron call in nearly three years, and used the call to reiterate boilerplate Kremlin narratives aimed at discouraging further Western military assistance to Ukraine.
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Spokesperson Maria Zakharova also criticized continued European military assistance to Ukraine. The Kremlin's messaging about the suspension of US military aid to Ukraine is yet another indicator that Russia remains committed to achieving its war goals by force and is uninterested in meaningful peace negotiations to end the war. These senior Russian officials’ statements indicate that suspending US military aid to Ukraine very likely will not compel Russia to conduct meaningful negotiations with Ukraine as President Trump desires, but rather embolden Moscow to continue protracting Russia's war.
The Kremlin is also using the US aid suspension as a basis to continue rhetorical attacks against European defensive efforts that are in line with Trump's initiative for Europe to shoulder more of the burden for collective defense. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko claimed on July 2 that the European Union's (EU) increased defense spending and development of its DIB show that the EU is becoming an “aggressive military bloc” that Russia will have to defend itself against. Grushko claimed that the EU carries out NATO's tasks and that the two organizations are deeply linked. Zakharova also claimed that the EU is turning into a military bloc and is “pumping” Ukraine with weapons.
Russian Ambassador to Norway Nikolay Korchunov told the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti in an interview published on June 30 that Norway is trying to benefit from the “militarization” of Europe and is “pumping up” the Ukrainian military.
Korchunov claimed that Norway is intensifying NATO military exercises on Norwegian territory near the Russian border and that Norway's militarization will increase tension and escalation risks in the Arctic and destabilize European security. Russian officials continue to mischaracterize increased NATO defense spending that is aimed at deterring war in Europe by building defense capabilities in response to Russia's ongoing efforts to restructure and expand Russia's military capabilities. The Kremlin's efforts to deter Western military assistance to Ukraine and European rearmament efforts are part of its wider cognitive warfare efforts that aim to shape Western decision-making and erode the West's will to act against Russian interests and resist Russia.
The US decision to suspend military aid to Ukraine will particularly degrade Ukraine's ability to defend against Russia's enhanced long-range missile and drone strike capabilities that have inflicted significant civilian casualties - in sharp contrast to President Trump's stated objective of stopping civilian casualties in Ukraine. US provisions of Patriot air defense systems and interceptors have been critical for Ukraine's ability to defend against Russia's missile strikes, particularly those with ballistic missiles. Russia's long-range strikes have increasingly targeted densely populated cities far from the frontline. Russia has recently prioritized expanding its long-range drone and missile production and stockpiling its ballistic missiles, enabling Russia to conduct larger, more effective combined missile and drone strike series against Ukraine.
Russia has notably conducted five of its largest combined strikes against Ukraine throughout the full-scale invasion between March and June 2025 and is launching an increasingly high number of Shahed and decoy drones that overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses, allowing more Russian missiles to hit their targets. Russia has also recently adapted its strike tactics to inflict maximum damage to civilians, including by deploying cluster munitions with delayed detonations, and Shahed drones equipped with capsules of chemical weapons and conducting “double tap” strikes that maximize casualties of civilian first responders.
Russia will very likely continue to increase the size of its combined strikes against Ukraine as Russia remains committed to accelerating its missile and drone production. The US suspension of critical Patriot interceptor supplies to Ukraine will likely impact Ukraine's ability to protect its critical, industrial, and civilian infrastructure. Russian forces exploited pauses in US military aid to Ukraine in late 2023 and early 2024 to conduct large-scale combined strikes designed to exhaust Ukraine's degraded air defense umbrella that was suffering from the lack of Western aid.
A dwindling supply of Patriot interceptors will force Ukraine to continue to make difficult defense prioritization decisions.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-2-2025 
