ChrisO_wiki@ChrisO_wiki, Jul 9, 2025
Russia is reported to be planning a major offensive into the Sumy, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions and an offensive against Odesa over the summer, using North Koreans to secure the Russian border. The Russian writer Maxim Kalashnikov calls it “practically fantastical”.According to the private Telegram channel Razvedchik (’Scout’), the Russian General Staff has given Vladimir Putin a plan for an offensive “in the second half of the summer” of 2025. The channel reports what its sources say about the proposal:
“They are proposing to release the military for the operation from border protection, and North Korean soldiers are being trained to replace them. “The Chief of the General Staff personally reported to the president on the readiness for a large-scale phase of the operation in the coming months with an extension beyond the new territories [i.e. Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson]. “The main scenario, which insiders have become familiar with, plans to break through deep into the Sumy, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions to create a buffer zone by the end of the summer. The document also includes plans to reach Odesa.
“The General Staff is proposing to the President to expand the control zone as much as possible before the autumn rains, when the muddy roads will make it difficult to use equipment and force the parties to switch to positional defense. “According to the source, Russia should have enough resources for such an operation.”
Maxim Kalashnikov, a nationalist author and agitator who co-founded the Club of Angry Patriots with the jailed Igor Girkin, is very sceptical. He writes:
“I consider this practically fantastical.
Even if 30,000 North Koreans replace our border guards, a major offensive (with forcing the [crossing of the] Dnipro!) will not work. The issue of paralyzing the rear of the Armed Forces of Ukraine by an air operation has not been resolved. The command and supply of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has not been destroyed. Therefore, the issue of the enemy's mass use of drones, creating a “death zone” fifty miles from the “ribbon” [border], has not been resolved.
“That is, the enemy will inflict monstrous losses on our equipment and infantry, turning our attempts to advance into something like Passchendaele or the “Nivelle massacre” in WWI [
https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-one/battles-of-world-war-one/the-nivelle-offensive/ ], while holding the line with fairly stretched forces. “Our quantitative superiority (but not qualitative and not in terms of the organisation of drones) does not solve the problem. We have not put our Air Force in order and therefore do not ensure the isolation of local areas of combat operations.
“Therefore - what kind of push to Odessa can there be?
Only the slow squeezing out of the Ukrainian Armed Forces at an extremely high price. Otherwise, the flabby system, permeated with nepotism and simony, corruption and inertia, cannot conduct a military operation. “One thing is certain: summer is the last attempt. Then the raging crisis in the Russian economy puts an end to the country's ability to wage war. Both Ukraine and the Russian Federation are running out of steam.
“No “cosmetic edits” can fix the tangle of obvious missed opportunities and complete disregard for the experience of modern wars that has wound up since 2014 and since 2022. “It's too late to drink Borjomi [mineral water] when your kidneys have failed. So we'll have to do as Trump wants...” /end
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1943017722838761867.html
