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Russia's summer offensive in Ukraine has completely failed, according to a military and security analyst. Julian Röpcke is a journalist for the German news outlet Bild and has been covering the war extensively since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022.
In a recent column for the newspaper, he gave four main reasons he believes Putin's summer campaign in Ukraine has collapsed. One of Russia's key goals in the east has been to take the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region - a key logistical hub for Ukraine's army. Röpcke argues that despite amassing troops at the gates of the city since January, all attempts to storm it or cut off its supply have failed up until now.
Earlier in August, several hundred Russian saboteurs were able to infiltrate Pokrovsk, in what many feared was a major breakthrough for the Kremlin's army.
However, within three weeks, all the Russians in Pokrovsk had either been killed or taken prisoner of war, with a Ukrainian officer telling BILD: "We are holding the city and have prepared a few surprises for the Russians. The military situation is better than it appears on maps."
Following Ukraine's invasion of Kursk and subsequent retreat in March, Putin ordered his army to create a 600-kilometre "buffer zone" within the Chernihiv, Sumy and Kharkiv regions.
However, Röpcke notes that Moscow currently controls less than 70 kilometres along the Ukraine - Russia border. "Here, too, Putin's military failed completely," he wrote.
Russia's military fortunes in southern Ukraine are "even more devastating", the military analyst also said. "Although annexed in 2022, the front line here [Zaporizhzhia and Kherson] has remained largely stable since then," he pointed out.
Finally, Röpcke claims that Russia's air defences are on their "last legs", and that Ukraine is increasingly able to carry out long distance drone attacks that have caused havoc to the Kremlin's energy infrastructure.
Ukrainian drones have destroyed 17% of Russian refinery output since the beginning of the year, leading to severe fuel shortages across the country.
"All in all, Putin's war is not going according to plan, even in the summer of 2025," he concluded. "1,800 square kilometres, equivalent to 0.3% of Ukraine's territory, have been conquered.
"This is one of the reasons why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is willing to accept a ceasefire, but not a surrender, as Moscow demands."
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