July 14, 2025

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Moscow’s Unrelenting Bombardments in Ukraine Signal Emboldened Putin

AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka

Moscow has stepped up its deadly, more than three-year-long assault on Ukraine in recent weeks, combining relentless drone and missile strikes on civilian targets with significant territorial capture in the East of Ukraine. Last week, Moscow struck Ukraine with more than 741 drones and missiles in a single night and has since kept pounding cities across the country in a trend of growing strike packages that include hundreds of drones and missiles launched at a target at once. On the ground, Russian troops have been making territorial gains and moving closer to Pokrovsk, a strategically located city that serves as a critical node in the supply lines for Ukraine’s Armed Forces on the eastern front, specifically as it protects the high-ground ridge in Donbas from escalating Russian pressure.

Moscow seeks to exhaust Kyiv’s resources, overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses, and disperse its troops along multiple fronts, as sources close to the Kremlin told the New York Times that Russian President Vladimir Putin believes Russia has secured battlefield superiority and can deal a deathblow. A path to a peace deal is thus increasingly muddied, with Putin emboldened. U.S. President Donald Trump’s reversal of the decision to halt all U.S. weaponry to Ukraine signals patience is wearing thin among the administration with the Kremlin’s aggression and lack of progress on a peace deal. Among European NATO allies, numerous countries have pledged additional support to Ukraine and Trump suggested for the first time that he’s likely to endorse a plan that sees the U.S. selling weapons to NATO allies, who could then provide them to Ukraine. This approach would benefit Washington financially, while also leaving the Trump administration one step removed from the process and thus, able to avoid claims that the U.S. is directly involved.

Through nightly barrages of fleets of drones and missiles, Russia has sought to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defense and erode civilian morale for the war effort. Russia’s drone campaign strategy in recent weeks, tactically employing hundreds of drones at once, is supported by its growing Shahed-like drone production capabilities. These relatively inexpensive drones, which Moscow initially sourced from Iran, are now produced in Russia, often with components sourced from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). According to the head of Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Oleh Ivashchenko, more than 80 percent of Russian drone parts are of Chinese origin. The Iranian-designed Shahed, a loitering munition, has been adapted by Russia to be faster and quieter, and its production facilities in Russia have churned out thousands of units.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin claimed last week that Russia had tripled its drone production compared to what was previewed for 2025. This rapid expansion of its drone capabilities and its tactical alliance with the PRC, the global leader in commercial drone manufacturing, has worried Ukrainian defense analysts. Some Russian drones that have been intercepted by the Ukrainian Armed Forces are AI-enabled, further causing concern about Russia’s evolving drone capabilities. The Commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces has warned that with its expanded production capabilities, Russia could launch up to 1,000 Shahed-like drones per day at Ukraine. This is a significant development, with drones, specifically first person view (FPV) drones, having played an essential role in Ukraine’s resistance against Russia. Last month, for example, Ukraine stunned the world with its Operation Spiderweb, using fleets of drones to strike five Russian airbases and causing an estimated $7 billion in losses.

On the ground, Russian forces have captured significant swathes of territory since the start of their summer offensive. On the eastern front, Russian armed forces are making incremental but sustained gains around the town of Chasiv Yar, attempting to break the corridor that includes Kostiantynivka, Kramatorsk, and Slovyansk, which serve a strategic role in protecting the rest of Donetsk Oblast. At the same time, Russia is pushing westward to Pokrovsk, a city that is a crucial hub through which the supply routes pass that buttress the Ukrainian position on the ridge. In the North, Russian forces continue pushing across the Oskil River near Kupiansk, and have expanded a new front in Sumy Oblast, capturing several border villages. While Russia has made significant territorial gains in June, analysis by The Economist indicates that it would still take up to 89 years at this rate to capture the entirety of Ukrainian territory, not accounting for the slower operational tempo that will inevitably set in as seasons change. At the same time, the manpower it expends for these minor gains is outsized, calling into question the sustainability of this campaign that is supposed to exhaust and stretch Ukrainian defenses.

In the United States, the administration’s patience with President Putin’s continued aggression against Ukraine is wearing thin. An earlier decision by the Pentagon to pause U.S. weaponry to Ukraine to redress concerns around U.S. weapon stockpiles was reversed by President Trump. The Trump administration has openly expressed frustration with Putin’s duplicity, something Ukrainian officials have long warned about. At the same time, the Sanctioning Russia Act, introduced by Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal, is gaining momentum to pass through Congress, with Trump signaling openness to sanctions on Russia. So far, this seems not to alter the strategic calculus by the Kremlin, which continues pounding Ukraine.

However, the latest meeting between Secretary of State Marc Rubio and Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov in Malaysia included not just discussions of a peace deal in Ukraine, but also a host of U.S.-Russia cooperation issues as well as the situation in Iran and Syria. Any economic, political, or diplomatic incentives could be leveraged by Russia to pressure the United States to deprioritize peace in Ukraine as the sine qua non of U.S.-Russia normalization.

In Europe, a renewed sense of urgency to support Ukraine has taken hold. At the Ukraine Recovery Conference last Thursday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz expressed Germany’s intent to buy U.S.-made Patriot missile defense systems for Ukraine. Nevertheless, crucial capabilities that Ukraine needs are not supplied by Europe, and U.S. buy-in, including intelligence sharing, will be a crucial component of continued Ukrainian resistance.