- Hubert Walas
For the first time in two years, Russia, from its own territory, has launched an incursion assault towards Kharkiv, resulting in its forces pushing 10 kilometres deep into Ukrainian territory. The Russian army's progress is also evident in Chasiv Yar, or Ocheretyne. But don't these tactical gains paradoxically herald a negative trend for Moscow? Is the Kremlin "running out of time" in Ukraine? Let's look at the current progress on the front in light of the broader geopolitical situation and take a slightly longer time horizon.
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Kharkiv Oblast Direction
On May 10, the day after the victory parade in Moscow, Russian troops launched offensive operations along the Russian-Ukrainian border in the northern part of the Kharkiv region. The incursion took place in two spots: in the direction of Vovchansk and further north towards Lukiantsi.
Over the course of several days, the Russians managed to achieve a tactical breakthrough of 5-10 km, depending on the location, after which the offensive lost momentum. As of this writing (Tuesday, May 21), the Russians have entered Vovchansk, while in the north they are trying to break through to the villages of Lyptsi and Zelene. The Ukrainian defence line here relies on the Travyansky Reservoir, among others.
The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces were pushing back Russian forces near Hlyboke, while the Russian Defense Ministry said that Russian forces had repulsed Ukrainian counterattacks near Lyptsi. Elements of Russia's 18th Motorized Rifle Division and 7th Motorized Rifle Regiment are most likely operating there. According to Davyd Arakhamia, leader of the Servant of the Nation Party, from which President Zelensky hails, the Americans do not allow the Ukrainians to attack Russian groups with the help of American weapons, which are located behind the border line, from which attacks are later launched. "An easy target, but no permission", - Arakhamia notes.
While there were initial suspicions that the cross-border action might be part of a broader campaign targeting Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, it quickly became clear that the Russian capabilities amassed in that direction were insufficient for that purpose. The main intention is to divert Ukrainian attention from other operational directions and to weaken them in view of Ukraine's manpower problems. The goal is also inevitably to drive Ukrainians away from the nearest front, the major Russian city of Belgorod. Belgorod is only 40 km from the Ukrainian border. Once the breakthrough was achieved, the distance increased to more than 50 km. After a week, such an objective of the operation was confirmed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who stated that the Russian effort was aimed at creating a "buffer zone".
In response, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukrainian forces had stabilized the front in the northern Kharkiv region and that Russian forces had not reached Ukraine's "concrete" and "strongest" line of defense in the area.
It is also possible that the Russians wanted to carry out this action before the Ukrainians received more extensive military aid as part of the $60 billion package passed in the United States a month ago.
On May 20, the Ukrainians also reported that the Russians were preparing a new grouping in the Sumy direction. Although it is limited and under-equipped, its purpose is to further stretch the fewer Ukrainian troops, and to that end it may prove effective.
Luhansk Oblast Direction
The Russians remain the advancing side along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna axis, but recent weeks have brought no significant changes to the front, which remains essentially frozen.
However, in recent days the Russians have reported their slight advances in the Berestove area, which the Institute for the Study of War says is confirmed by satellite imagery. Fighting is also taking place near Synkivka, Ivanivka, Petropavlivka, Stelmakhivka, Makiivka and Terny, among other areas. The Russian Defense Ministry has claimed that the village of Bilohorivka has been captured, but even Russian milbloggers have declared this to be false or premature.
A spokesman for a Ukrainian unit operating in the direction of Kupyansk stated that Russian forces have recently intensified their attacks on Kupyansk and are suffering heavy casualties as a result. This footage shows Ukrainian troops destroying five Russian tanks (including a T-90) and five BMP infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) between the villages of Torske and Terny, west of Kreminna.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainians are carrying out attacks on Russian targets in the suburbs of Lugansk. For this purpose, the use of French SCALP-EG missiles was confirmed, the remains of which were found on the ground. The attack is said to have targeted the buildings of the Lugansk Academy of Internal Affairs, which was supposed to be a place where soldiers were stationed.
Donetsk Oblast Direction
Over the past two months, the Russians have continued their advance on Chasiv Yar, but while they have managed to occupy most of the "German Forest" that separates Ivanivske from Chasiv Yar, the Ukrainians are keeping the aggressors away from the settlement's borders. The Russian progress in the last 2 months, in this direction, can be estimated at about 3 kilometers.
However, returning to the northern part of the region, the Ukrainian staff reports that Russian military activity has increased, especially in Siversk. Fighting is also taking place near Rozdolivka, Bilohorivka, Verknokamyanskie, Spirne, and Vyimka.
At the level of Horlivka and Niu-York, the front remains stable, which cannot be said about the situation near Avdiivka. Since our last report, the Russians have deepened the breakthrough in this section, taking almost all of Ocheretyne and Novomakhmutivka. Russian progress can also be seen in the settlements of Umanske and Pervomaiske. Over the past two months, Kremlin forces have moved the front line up to 8 kilometres in their favour. The goal is to seize the key H-32 road linking Konstantinitynivka and Pokrovsk, and then links with the M-30 road to Dnipro. The artery is essential for the Ukrainian Armed Forces to resupply the defenders of Chasiv Yar, among others.
The Russians are also advancing in the Marinka area - specifically at the level of Krasnohorivka, where they have seized part of the settlement, as well as Novomykhalivka.
Russian forces are also trying to attack at the level of Vuhledar, in Mykilske, but these attempts are fruitless, and the front remains frozen.
Southern Ukraine Direction
It will soon be one year since the Ukrainian offensive campaign started in this area, which ultimately failed for various reasons. Also, the front has remained essentially unchanged for the past 12 months, although both sides are attempting offensive actions. Given the general stage of the war, it is usually the Russians.
Fighting continues around Urozaine, Staromairoske, Pryiutne, Verbove, and Robotyne. However, Kremlin forces are said to be close to taking Robotyne, as confirmed by satellite imagery, according to ISW. The Russians are also expected to move southwest of Hulyaipole.
Kherson-Crimea Direction
The Ukrainians maintain their small bastion on the left bank of the Dnieper near Krynky.
Kyiv's forces also continue to attack various targets in Russian-occupied Crimea. In the past few days, the Ukrainians have launched two major attacks on a number of targets. First, on May 17, they attacked the port of Sevastopol with two ATACAMS missiles, again targeting ships of the Black Sea Fleet. There are no satellite images yet, but Russian bloggers reported that up to two ships were hit - the minesweeper "Kovrovets" and the small Karakurt-class missile corvette "Zyklon", which entered service barely a year ago.
Even more consequential was the May 19 drone strike. Perhaps the largest massive Ukrainian drone attack since the beginning of the war, which targeted Sevastopol and the Krasnodar region.
The Russians claimed to have shot down 51 drones over Crimea, 44 over Krasnodar, and 6 over Bielogorod, but these claims cannot be verified. Here, we see footage from Novorossiysk of Russians celebrating the downing of a drone while firing bullets at their own city - in the second footage, we see the aftermath of the Russian shelling of Novorossiysk.
Despite claims, Russian air defences let some of the drones through. A power plant in Sevastopol was damaged, causing blackouts. In addition, the Belbek airbase was attacked again, destroying two MiG-31s and one Su-27 and MiG-29 each. Meanwhile, in the Krasnodar krai, the Tuapse refinery was targeted. This footage shows Ukrainian Lyutui drones. The drone can carry a payload of up to 50 kg of explosives, a performance similar to Iran's Shahed-136, and is responsible for most Ukrainian attacks on targets in Russia's deep interior.
The geopolitical situation
Speaking of strikes inland, this map shows all the targets of Ukrainian attacks on Russian fuel sector - refineries, fuel depots, oil and gas terminals. Despite U.S. objections, the Ukrainians continue to attack these sites in an attempt to squeeze the funding base of the Russian war machine, i.e. the hydrocarbon sector. In recent weeks alone, the Tuapse refinery, the Slavyansk refinery, and the Pervy Zavod refinery in Kaluga have been hit. According to one NATO official, by late March, the Ukrainian attacks may have reduced Russian refining capacity by 15 per cent, forcing the Kremlin to announce a six-month ban on gasoline exports.
In an article for Foreign Affairs, the authors take issue with the American argument that the Ukrainians should not attack Russian refineries because it will raise global oil prices and have a negative impact on the global energy situation. Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense, stated that "the Ukrainians should be attacking tactical and operational targets" apparently instead of (that’s what we add) strategic targets, which are refineries.
Meanwhile, the attacks reduce Russian refining capacity but not crude oil exports. In other words, the Russians are forced to sell cheaper unrefined oil instead of more expensive refined oil. It is no coincidence that Ukrainian drones are hitting refineries, not oil fields or transportation infrastructure. Data confirms that Russia is now exporting more crude oil, while refined products such as gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, etc. - which have much higher margins, are at historic lows. Moscow exported about 712,000 tons of diesel and other petroleum products in the last week of April, down nearly 150,000 tons from the same period last year.
And so Ukrainian attacks on Russian infrastructure are therefore certain to continue, especially as Ukraine's drone capacity production increases.
Yet, Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure are even more serious. On May 8, Russia launched another massive attack, launching 55 cruise and ballistic missiles accompanied by 21 drones. The targets of the attack were energy infrastructure facilities in the Poltava, Kirovohrad, Zaporizhzhya, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Vinnytsia regions. As Volodymyr Omelchenko of the Razumkov Center reports, as a result of these and many other attacks, up to 70% of Ukraine's energy infrastructure is now destroyed, damaged or in occupied territory. Kyiv is bailing out by importing energy from Poland, Romania and Slovakia, among others. Meanwhile, Ukrainian operator DTEK reported in the second week of May that it had temporarily lost up to 90% of its generating capacity as a result of Russian missile attacks.
That is why, one of the most frequent calls from Ukrainians in recent times has been not for artillery ammunition but for instruments to defend against air strikes. In a recent meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that additional air defenses are “our biggest deficit. These demands have been noted in the Western community, but no concrete action has yet been seen. That's why Zelensky is urging NATO countries to shoot down Russian missiles flying over Ukraine from alliance territory, but the chances of NATO taking such action seem illusory today.
As for the aforementioned artillery ammunition, on May 16, Zelensky surprised observers by saying that for the first time since the invasion began, "no Ukrainian brigade has a shortage of artillery shells." It seems that the "Czech initiative," which we have often mentioned in our reports and which was supposed to guarantee Kyiv 1.5 million shells later this year, has partially materialised. Interestingly, as late as the end of April, Ukrainian informants reported that their artillery was suffering from starvation.
Meanwhile, the United States is nearing an agreement with the Europeans to use frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine. The Americans are more aggressive in this regard and are inclined to full confiscation, unlike the Europeans - mainly the Germans, French and Belgians, where most of the Russian assets are located. The Euroclear financial group, based in Belgium, holds as much as $190 billion of the $300 billion frozen. The said consensus would not necessarily be based on a direct seizure of funds but on the use of the interest generated by these assets. However, it would not be the interest itself that would be transferred to Ukraine, which is "only" $3 billion a year, but a loan to the Ukrainians based on it. In this case, the amount rises to $50 billion. At the time of writing, the G7 finance ministers were scheduled to meet in the hope of finalising a plan to present to the heads of states before the group's leaders meet next month.
Long horizon
After more than two years of war, there are no signs on the horizon that it might end any time soon. Although his term has expired, Zelensky remains in power in Ukraine as the war drags on. Putin, on the other hand, in the style of a modern tsar, has begun his fifth term, but actually his sixth, counting the "Medvedev" period, in which he receded into the shadows. This time his most significant move on the chessboard of the Kremlin elite under his stewardship was to oust Sergei Shoigu from his position as defence minister and replace him with Andrei Belousov, the former finance minister. The choice of Belousov, who is described as an efficient financier and someone who looks over the horizon, albeit without any military experience, means the budget requires more and more scrutiny. It is not without reason that he has been assigned to the Ministry of Defense, as already 35% of the Russian budget is consumed by the military and the defense industry. On the other hand, it also means that Moscow is further preparing for the "long game" in Ukraine.
Ukraine itself, of course, is in much worse financial shape. On the other hand, the West, which supports it, is de facto financially unaffected by this war. As a result, we arrive at a paradox in which we get several asymmetries in the Russia-Ukraine-West triangle. The first is involvement: Russia and Ukraine are very much involved in the conflict, although Ukraine is obviously the party involved the most. The West, on the other hand, is engaged symbolically. The second is financial resources. Ukraine is an actor with fewer resources than Russia but in a relationship smaller than the difference between Russia and the West. We are talking of roughly about $200 billion in the case of Ukraine, $2 trillion in the case of Russia, and $40 trillion in gross domestic product in the case of the West. The third factor is human resources, from which the West should be plotted - here, the advantage of Russian conscription potential is about 1:4; 1:5.
The paradox is that Ukraine remains relatively stable in this war despite the relatively little Western involvement. "Relatively little Western involvement" is the key phrase in that sentence. It is worth taking a close look at the numbers. Leaders of NATO countries, including the Polish foreign minister recently, say that European countries and America are currently at a similar level of net contributions to the Ukrainian war effort. Let's say it was $150 billion per power centre - a total of $300 billion over two years. Western economies produced about $80 trillion worth of goods during the same period. Transfers to Ukraine, which also contribute to the growth of Western economies, thus account for 0.4% of the Western side's output. Taking the perspective of an average person who produces €2,000 worth of products in his work, this is equivalent to spending €8 on a meal at McDonald's .
Russia, as we said, spends 35% of its budget on war spending, or more than 7% of its GDP - these are figures from the prestigious Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. In nominal terms, we are talking about $140 billion. That is, roughly speaking, the spending of the two sides "balances out". Of course, only a part of Western aid goes to strictly military aid, but on the other hand despite the small size of its economy, Ukraine invests about 35% of its GDP in its armed forces, resulting in quite a significant additional $65 billion.
So let's return for a moment to our asymmetry of involvement from an economic perspective. Ukraine (35% of its GDP) obviously feels the war the most and is 5 times more involved than Russia (7%). Russia (7%), on the other hand, is 17 times more involved than the West (0.4%), for whom this is the equivalent of one meal at McDonald's per month. Thus, it can be hypothesised that the Ukrainian sacrifice, combined with the deep pockets of the West, despite its very low involvement, is nevertheless a more stable situation than that of the Russian side. Why is that? Because in the long horizon, wars are won by the economy, and the arms industry. Meanwhile, these two factors are already crackling from overload in Russia today, while this does not translate into any strategic success. Meanwhile, the West is lazily rolling out its factories, while economically, the war is within statistical error for it.
So it may not be the case that time is on Russia's side in this war - a theme that has often appeared in various analyses of the issue over the past year. Yes, the West could end this war in a few months if it wanted to, but apparently, it doesn't want to or doesn’t have such willpower and is cruising with the flow. But even in this minimalist version, this means keeping Ukraine in a war that is becoming increasingly difficult for the Kremlin to finance, as evidenced by the allocation of as much as 35% of the federal budget. Russia has the military-economic resources for about five years of war at the current intensity. That is the claim of, among others, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and that would mean that we are at the halfway point of depleting Russian potential.
So let's look at the current situation on the front line through such a prism. The Russians are motivated to push because every additional month of no change means big problems for the regime as early as the end of 2025. On the other hand, Zelensky is not hitting the West as hard as he did a year ago but is much more calmly "managing" the country in the war, so he is calming the narrative in the international forum. He is doing this because he knows that for a positive outcome, first: he must wait out Russia, and second: he cannot antagonise and "tire out" the West with Ukraine. He may even think that maintaining the current level of annual Western aid will be enough for him in a 2-3 year time horizon. Hitting Russian sources of income - refineries - is also useful, as each such hit is potentially a few days less of war.
On the other hand, he needs to keep the country "alive" for that time - and he can't do that without a stable energy system, which is why he has changed the narrative from offensive measures to instruments of air defense. The second key factor in stopping the adversary, where Ukraine stands out, is manpower. That is why the Kyiv government is taking new mobilisation initiatives despite opposition from some segments of the population. On May 18th, a new law came into force, another in a series, to facilitate the recruitment of new recruits into the army and stabilise the situation in the UAF. Zelensky is also aware that Ukraine could receive its first F-16s as early as June.
Let's not forget that the West, albeit with its characteristic sluggishness, is increasing its production capacity and continues to have stockyards full of thousands of pieces of military equipment - in this case, we're talking mainly about the Americans. Meanwhile, Russia is clearing its Soviet-era warehouses of everything that moves; the rest is being cannibalised for repairs, and the production capacity of the factories is being pushed to the limits. Michael Kofman believes it is doubtful that new production will be able to replace even 20 per cent of the current losses, which is why we are seeing more and more 70-year-old T-54 tanks on the front lines.
Kyiv's strategy may therefore be to wisely hold off the enemy, limit its own human losses, and wait for more advanced Western systems, such as F16 aircraft, to reduce Russia's manpower advantage. Ukraine may not be looking for an "offensive" like the one that everyone expected a year ago in the direction of southern Ukraine, but rather to degrade the enemy's forces and take advantage of local opportunities as they arise - recall Kupyansk raid. Part of this campaign, however, will be a massive expansion of fortifications.
The first sign of a tottering Russian colossus will not necessarily be serious financial problems - the Kremlin can always tighten the screws and extract those funds from its citizens. The problem that will be much harder to compensate for will be shortages of heavy equipment - these are already visible. As such problems pile up, not only will the Russians be unable to mount further offensive operations, but holding the territory they already hold today could become a problem. Still, barring the unexpected, this is probably a prospect of at least several months.
In our March report, we said that Russia may have peaked at this stage of the war, and while it still has the upper hand in many respects, the pendulum of the war is now swinging back to the Ukrainian side. Kyiv is calmly waiting for it, and is not panicking in the face of moves such as the "Kharkiv offensive".
Finishing with the words of the aforementioned Michael Kofman, one of the leading experts on this war, which he said before US aid announcment, "If Ukraine can hold through 2024, Russia's current advantage in this war does not necessarily increase, or become decisive, but instead can decrease over time."
And that will be just the beginning of Russia's problems.
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