Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 14, 2025
Excerpts:
Trump said that European security benefits US interests and noted that Europe is committed to helping Ukraine defend itself. Trump stated that “having a strong Europe is a very good thing” and that Europe thinks supporting Ukraine is important ... Axios on July 13 cited a source stating that Trump told French President Emmanuel Macron following the call that Putin “wants to take all of [Ukraine].”
ISW continues to assess that a Russian victory in the war that results in the conquest of all of Ukraine would bring combat experienced Russian forces up to NATO's borders from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean such that the United States would need to move large numbers of US forces and commit a significant proportion of its fleet of stealth aircraft to Europe.Additional US military aid to Ukrainian forces will arrive at a dynamic, not static, frontline characterized by ongoing Russian offensive operations aimed at achieving slow maneuver and by Ukrainian counterattacks in key frontline areas ... Russian forces have established or are actively establishing at least 8 salients that Russian forces could leverage in mutually reinforcing tactical- and operational-level envelopments along the frontline.
Recent Russian attacks in the Velykyi Burluk direction indicate that the Russian military command intends to create a salient from which Russian forces can threaten Ukrainian forces in the rear of the Vovchansk and northern Kupyansk directions ... ISW assessed in late January 2025 that Russian forces were developing and disseminating a doctrinal method of advance throughout the theater that aims to conduct slow envelopments of frontline settlements at a scale that is reasonable for Russian forces to conclude before culminating, and Russian patterns of advance over the last six months are consistent with this assessment.
The Russian military command's apparent decision to bypass the Ukrainian fortress belt in Donetsk Oblast and attempts at a multi-year operation to envelop the southern half of the fortress belt further underscores Russia's commitment to this new doctrinal method.
Forcing Putin to abandon his current theory of victory and agree to end the war on reasonable terms requires Ukrainian forces to stop Russian advances and begin to retake operationally significant areas ... Western aid provided in support of this effort is essential to hastening an end to the war. Ukrainian forces have been successful in holding Russian advances along the frontline to a foot pace while inflicting significant casualties on Russian forces. Putin has demonstrated throughout the past year, however, that he believes in a theory of victory that posits that indefinite Russian gains - no matter how slow or how costly - will allow Russia to achieve his goals in Ukraine.
Putin's theory assumes that the Russia can outlast and overcome Western military assistance to Ukraine and that Ukrainian forces will be unable to liberate any significant territory that Russian forces seize. Putin is operating under the assumption that Ukraine will not be able to acquire and sustain the manpower and materiel required to prevent creeping but indefinite Russian advances or to contest the initiative and conduct counteroffensive operations at some scale to liberate territory. Western military aid to Ukraine's ground forces is required to enable Ukrainian forces to stop Russian advances and then push Russian forces back in critical areas.
Such successes will invalidate Putin's assumptions that Russian forces can continue gradual advances indefinitely and that Russian forces will be able to hold any territory they seize.
Only significant Ukrainian battlefield gains will prompt changes in his calculus and force Putin to discard his efforts to prolong the war, come to the negotiating table, and agree to a peace settlement on acceptable terms to bring about Trump's desired just and lasting end to the war.
Timely and reliable Western military assistance to Ukraine coupled with increased economic pressure is necessary to bring about an end of the war on terms satisfactory for the United States, Europe, and Ukraine. Well-provisioned Ukrainian forces have previously demonstrated their ability to prevent Russian forces from making even marginal gains and to retake significant territory despite Russian manpower and materiel advantages.
Western military aid to Ukraine will enable Ukrainian forces to maintain, if not increase, their ability to inflict the significant materiel and personnel losses on the battlefield that are straining Russia's economy. Western provisions of air defense systems to Ukraine will protect Ukraine's people and enable Ukraine's defense industrial base (DIB) to flourish and increasingly meet Ukraine's long-term national security needs. Ukraine's DIB has proven critical for maintaining Ukraine's drone-based defenses that are limiting Russian forces to creeping advances at high costs, and the West will continue to benefit from Ukrainian innovations and industrial capacity in the long-term. Economic pressure, in the form of both Western sanctions and enduring labor shortages and demographic issues brought on by losses in Ukraine, will further strain the Russian economy and reduce the funds available to Moscow for its protracted war effort.
Putin remains committed to his original war aims over 1,200 days into his full-scale invasion and is trying to avoid making concessions at any cost, including those that would risk the long-term security of the Russian state and the stability of Putin's regime.
Putin is deliberately protracting the war in Ukraine, believing that time is on Russia's side. Putin has chosen not to enact socially unpopular policies that would boost Russia's war effort in a sustainable way and continues to bet that the West will abandon Ukraine long before he must. The Trump administration has set the stage to seize on this critical moment, via both military aid to Ukraine and expanded economic pressure on Russia, to exploit Russia's weaknesses and negotiate a deal that maximizes US, European, and Ukrainian interests.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-14-2025
