Puusepp: Russia’s summer offensive amounted to local skirmishes

Russia is losing more soldiers in Ukraine each month than it can recruit, and its expected major summer offensive instead amounted largely to local skirmishes, Estonian Lieutenant Colonel Mattias Puusepp told ERR’s Ukraine Studio.

Russian advances continue to rely on sacrificing thousands of soldiers to capture each square kilometre, Puusepp said, while Ukrainian forces have become more effective at stopping Russian attacks.

“If we compare this with the same period a year ago, when the Russians managed to capture about 460 square kilometres in August at the cost of around 30,000 men, Ukrainian statistics show that this August the Russians lost 42,000 men and captured significantly less territory,” Puusepp said.

He said the figures showed that Ukraine’s ability to repel and destroy Russian forces had improved over the past year, while Russia had failed to find an effective way to accelerate its advance.

Russia is losing more than 40,000 soldiers a month while sending about 30,000 to the front, creating a significant shortfall that has contributed to the slowdown of its advance, Puusepp said.

“In reality, we cannot say that there has been any successful offensive this summer of the kind generally expected, with the Russians launching some sort of larger offensive. It has mostly been local skirmishes, and they have not managed to achieve any significant operational success,” he said.

According to Ukrainian assessments cited by Puusepp, Russia could decide on a general mobilisation after its parliamentary elections in September. Such a move could add more than 500,000 soldiers, but their readiness to fight would remain uncertain.

Russia would probably be able to provide the recruits with basic personal equipment and weapons, Puusepp said, but it was doubtful that it could form effective units from them. They would more likely be used as reinforcements in the areas under the heaviest pressure, he said.

Public information indicates that some recruits receive very little training and, in exceptional cases, are sent from recruitment centres to the front within a few days without training, Puusepp added.

The situation on the front remains stable, with only small advances and retreats, he said. Ukraine is in the 236th week of the war, while daily activity remains at about 265 combat engagements. The main hotspots are Kostyantynivka, Pokrovsk and Lyman in Donetsk region, and Hulyaipole in Zaporizhzhia region.

Puusepp said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claims of success were primarily aimed at a domestic audience, to show that the thousands of soldiers killed had not died in vain and that some progress had been achieved.