Putin plots summer of relentless attacks on Ukraine

Moscow is ramping up its ground offensives and bombing campaigns against cities across Ukraine as its invasion enters a fourth summer. At the same time, the U.S. decision this week to stop delivery of some weapons to the Ukrainians hands Putin a significant boost to his efforts to weaken Western support that is central to sustaining Kyiv’s resistance.

Putin, in a Thursday call with Trump, signaled that he had no intention of heeding the U.S. president’s calls to end the war. Instead, he reiterated that his goals remained the same as when he invaded: to reassert Russian dominance over Ukraine and force the West to withdraw its support for Kyiv.

“Our president said that Russia will achieve its goals, that is, the elimination of the well-known root causes that led to the current state of affairs," said Yuri Ushakov, a close adviser to the Russian leader, according to state news agency TASS. “Russia will not back down from these goals."

Putin’s strategy is aimed at breaking Ukraine’s ability and will to fight the war, by ratcheting up pressure on its military and civilian population as the country’s most powerful backer shuffles toward the sidelines. The weapons that the U.S. halted include air-defense interceptors that have been helping to protect Ukrainian cities from aerial barrages that have been increasing in intensity.

Ukraine now faces a summer of relentless attacks from its larger neighbor, with Trump’s efforts to bring about peace stalled. Putin expressed a willingness to engage in negotiations, Ushakov said, but no new dates for talks have been set.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday that he would discuss U.S. support for Ukraine in a call with Trump in the coming days.

“Of course, we count on the continuation of American support, because there are certain things that, unfortunately, Europe cannot provide," he told reporters, highlighting air-defense missiles for Patriot systems, the only type that can shoot down Russian ballistic missiles.

The latest developments are bolstering Russia’s confidence that it can outlast Ukraine and its supporters in a war of attrition. Ukraine will have to husband materiel, and the move will likely accelerate Russian gains on the battlefield, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said in an analysis Thursday.

Russia has massed around 50,000 troops in Ukraine’s northern Sumy province, advancing to around 12 miles from the regional capital, a new target for Moscow. Russia has roughly three soldiers for every one Ukrainian fighting there, according to Ukrainian troops.

Ukraine has managed to halt the Russian advance for now, but the offensive has further stretched Ukraine’s meager forces, which are suffering from manpower shortages. Russia is pressing at several spots along the 750-mile front lines, arcing from the northeast to the south, forcing Ukrainian commanders to send some of their best units to plug gaps.

Russia’s advance accelerated in the spring. Moscow threw fresh troops onto the battlefield, as increased foliage helped conceal their movements.

Still, Russia’s progress has been incremental and coming at a heavy cost in lives. Russian forces haven’t seized a significant city since capturing Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine in February 2024.

“It’s been slow from the Russian perspective," said Nick Reynolds, research fellow for land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute in London. “A lot of that is down to the difficulties of Russian ground forces. The level of attrition they are taking has made it difficult for the Russians to apply more pressure."

But gaining territory might not be the most important aim for Russia at this stage of the war. Instead, some analysts said, Putin wants to chew up the troops and equipment of his smaller neighbor and undermine support from civilians as well as in the West.

“We should measure not the square kilometers of territory captured but the ratio of losses, because it’s hard to compensate for losses," said Taras Chmut, head of Come Back Alive, a charity supplying weapons to the Ukrainian army. “Our global aim is to make the ratio of losses catastrophic for them."

Ukraine’s top military commander, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskiy, has repeatedly said that Ukraine can’t defeat Russia by staying on the defensive. “Of course, we won’t remain in mindless defense," he told reporters last month.

A significant increase in airstrikes is battering Kyiv and other cities using missiles and explosive drones, causing mounting civilian casualties, damaging buildings and exhausting residents.

“The enemy," said Lt. Gen. Vasyl Maliuk, head of Ukraine’s SBU security service, “is trying to sow terror."

Ukraine, meanwhile, is stepping up efforts to weaken Russia’s ability to fight by striking far from the front lines. Long-range drones relentlessly target Russian military equipment and production facilities inside Russia, inflicting 15 times the cost of the drones, according to Syrskiy. Shorter-range craft are taking on a growing role striking ammunition and fuel stores close to the front lines.

Early Thursday, Ukrainian forces said they had struck a military store in the occupied eastern region of Donetsk, destroying guided-missile and rocket-artillery ammunition.

Officials from the SBU cataloged a series of long-range strikes in recent days. On Tuesday, Ukrainian drones hit a factory in Izhevsk that produces air-defense systems and drones. Explosive craft destroyed an air-defense system and three helicopters in occupied Crimea on June 28, a day after drones destroyed two Russian Su-34 fighter-bombers.

Ukraine is also targeting Russian military commanders and scientists using both strikes and assassinations.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday that the deputy commander of its navy, Maj. Gen. Mikhail Gudkov, had been killed in Russia’s Kursk region, which is across the border from Sumy. Unofficial Ukrainian and Russian social-media channels earlier reported that he had been killed in a missile strike on a command post.

Write to James Marson at james.marson@wsj.com