How is the war going? — June 2025

Hello,

In this video, I give an overview of the front line situation. The Russian summer offensive has begun, and they are pushing along the entire front line. Meanwhile, the air war is intensifying, and it appears it has entered a new phase where air defenses on both sides cannot keep up with the constantly growing numbers of drones and missiles.

Watch the video on the website or read the transcript below.

Best,
Anders

Transcript:

It has been a very long time since I provided an update on the frontline situation in Ukraine, and there are a couple of reasons for that. First, I don't think that following the constant movements on the frontline is actually the best way to get an impression of where the war is going, and on a more general level, it's just not actually all that interesting who occupies what territory at any given point. The interesting thing is which army they can continue fighting the longest because that's what will decide the war in the end. And additionally, just recently, there hasn't been all that much going on on the front line and the political situation has been more dynamic and that has drawn more attention. But despite those things, it is still important to also keep an eye on the tactical situation. So in this video, I want to give an overview of what's happening from a military point of view and also reflect a bit on where things might be going. So let's talk about it.

The big picture right now is that Russia recently launched its summer offensive, so after a couple of months where things have been more quiet, the intensity is now higher again and we're currently seeing the Russians moving forward more than they have in previous months.

If we begin in the northern part of Ukraine, then what until a couple of months ago was Ukraine's incursion into Russia's Kursk region has now turned around and the fighting is more taking place on the Ukrainian side of the border in the Sumy region. Ukraine still has a very small presence in the Kursk region around the city of Tyotkino, but the overall picture is that things are now taking place on the Ukrainian side of the border.

Putin has been talking about the need to establish a buffer zone along the entire border. So far, Russia has achieved only limited success in establishing a buffer zone. They've occupied a pretty small area north of the city of Sumy, and most of the border area is still under Ukrainian control.

There has been talk about the Russians having maybe around 70,000 troops allocated to doing this. Just judging from that number, it doesn't seem realistic that they would be able to establish a large buffer zone along the entire border. It's about the same number of troops that they used to eject the Ukrainians from the Kursk region a couple of months ago. So you don't actually get very far with 70,000 troops. I think it's also fair to say that the Russians will not, with these troops, be able to take the city of Sumy.

My reading of what the Russians are trying to do here is that it is essentially a diversion operation that is intended to draw Ukrainian troops into the area. And it's also intended to put pressure on the Ukrainian government to eventually give in to Russian demands in negotiations about ending the war.

The way they try to create that pressure is to put the city of Sumy in danger. The Russians don't have to advance very far before the city is within range of tube artillery and FPV drones. And from that point on, they will start basically leveling the city. Sumy is a city with a population of about 250,000 people. So it's a big city. And this obviously creates pressure on the government in Kyiv to prevent the Russians from doing that. So they need to allocate more resources to keep the situation in this area under control.

If we move on to the Kharkiv region, the most interesting vector of attack isn't actually from the north where the Russians attacked in their big Kharkiv offensive last year, but rather it's from the east. There is a river here that's called the Oskil River, and the Russians have managed to get a foothold on the west side of that. They're working to expand that. And if they successfully manage to do that, then it could create problems for the Ukrainian going forward and eventually put the city of Kupyansk under threat. It's not developing super rapidly right now, but it shows that the Russians are pushing in this area as well and that it's something that the Ukrainians have to allocate resources to keeping under control.

In general, the Russians are pushing pretty hard along the entire front in the east. But the area that I specifically want to point out is around the city of Toretsk. It looks like one of the big goals of the Russian summer offensive is to close this pocket, which would bring their forces to the outskirts of the city of Konstantinivka. This would create a kind of axis between the cities of Chasiv Yar, Konstantinivka, and down to Pokrovsk, where the front line would run along three important cities. That would really put a lot of pressure on the Ukrainian forces to prevent these cities from falling.

This seems to be the area that has the highest priority in the Russian summer offensive where they allocate the most resources. Very importantly, this also seems to be the area where we see the Russians using their best drone units right now. This is always an indication of what areas they prioritize.

I think it's possible that the Russians might be able to take Chasiv Yar over the summer, but I think it's more unlikely that they would be able to take Konstantinivka or Pokrovsk. It's important to note that of these three cities, then Chasiv Yar is also by far the smallest. It had a pre-war population of around 12,000 people, and the Battle of Chasiv Yar has now been going on for about a year. So this just shows how difficult it is for the Russians to take cities, and both Pokrovsk and Konstantinivka are significantly bigger than that.

If we move on to the southern sector, then things are quite static. The Russians have made attempts to break through the front line and approach the city of Zaporizhia, but so far the Ukrainians have been able to hold the line, more or less, so there have been less developments here over recent months.

Finally, I want to mention the Kherson area. There isn't a lot of movement in terms of military developments along a front line here because the front line is running along the Dnipro River, so its location is pretty much fixed. However, there is still a lot of fighting every day across the river, and I think this is worth mentioning. There is shooting in both directions across the river, and especially I think it's important to highlight the pressure that Russia is putting on the city of Kherson.

There are daily shellings of the city and most importantly, we have seen since at least last summer what's been called "human safaris" where drones have been used to terrorize the civilian population. This is really making life difficult for the people of Kherson because suddenly FPV drones will be attacking people that are waiting at a bus stop and things like that. So civilians that have nothing to do with the war are attacked by drones. Obviously that's not legal according to international law, but that does not seem to stop the Russians from doing it.

So when I talked about how Russia is threatening the city of Sumy by moving their forces within FPV range of the city, then this is the perspective we need to have in mind. What could potentially happen over the next year is that the citizens of Sumy will be facing the same situation as the citizens of Kherson are right now. That's why it's so important for the Ukrainians to prevent that from happening.

So that's the frontline situation in broad strokes. Alongside this, I think it's also important to mention the air war, which I think in general is best understood as something that runs in parallel to the war on the frontline. These two things don't necessarily have all that much to do with each other. So this is the long range airstrikes that Russia makes on the rest of Ukraine and also that Ukraine increasingly makes into Russia.

I think the air war is perhaps the area where things are changing the most right now. What's happening is that both sides have been able to increase the production of long-range strike capabilities, such as drones, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, those things. We are seeing bigger and bigger airstrikes with a higher and higher number of drones and missiles. And we're also seeing that both sides are increasingly struggling with air defense capabilities.

So I think we are moving into a new stage of the air war where it will increasingly be impossible to defend against these strikes. They will become more and more successful and casualties will be higher and higher. The two sides will have to find a new kind of logic in the air war because especially Ukraine cannot continue to just focus on shooting down the Russian missiles and drones. It would just be an impossible task. Instead, we will have to see a more offensive and aggressive response. So there's definitely a changing dynamic in the air war. And I think that over the coming months and perhaps the coming year, we will see a significant intensification in this area.

Okay, to wrap it up, the most significant thing on the frontline right now is that the Russian summer offensive has started. We are again seeing the Russians accelerating their advances, but also taking higher casualties. This is happening pretty much along the entire front line. I think it's likely that we will see Russia being able to make gains over the summer where they will take some territory, but I think it will be limited what they will be able to take in terms of cities. We might see them taking the city of Chasiv Yar and maybe some smaller cities, but I doubt we will see other big, significant cities falling in the coming months.

And that means that when we get into the fall, I think overall the general situation will be more or less unchanged. The Russians will have taken a few more square kilometers, but in terms of the fundamental dynamics of the war, it will still be two armies that are fighting an attritional war where both sides will still be standing. And meanwhile, the air war will be intensifying and unfortunately, we are going to see more and more civilian casualties as a result of that.

Okay, I will end it here. If you found the video helpful or informative, then please give it a like and remember to subscribe to the channel and click the bell icon to get notifications when I upload new videos. If you want to support the channel, you can subscribe to my newsletter and then you will also get access to bonus videos. That's on www.logicofwar.com. Thank you very much for watching, and I will see you again next time.