According to Kiev and military analysts, the Russian army is preparing for a new offensive in the coming weeks to put maximum pressure on Ukraine and put the Kremlin in a stronger position in the ceasefire talks, the Associated Press reported, quoted by BTA.
The move could give Russian President Vladimir Putin every reason to postpone discussions on a temporary cessation of fighting, in which case Russia will try to seize more territory, Ukrainian officials say. According to Ukrainian officials, Russia has no intention of engaging in meaningful dialogue to end the war.
According to analysts and military commanders, the Kremlin is planning a multi-pronged offensive along the 1,000-kilometer front line this spring. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, citing intelligence, that the Russian army is ready for new offensives in the eastern regions of Sumy, Kharkiv and Zaporizhia.
"They are dragging out the negotiations and trying to drag the United States into endless and pointless discussions about fake "conditions" just to buy time and then try to grab more land," Zelensky said on Thursday in Paris, where a summit in support of Ukraine of the so-called "coalition of the willing" was held. "Putin wants to negotiate territory from a stronger position," the Ukrainian leader added.
Russia has effectively rejected a U.S. proposal for an immediate and complete 30-day ceasefire, and the possibility of a partial ceasefire in the Black Sea has been cast into doubt after Kremlin negotiators set far-reaching conditions, the AP reported.
Ukraine's emergency services said on Friday that at least four people were killed and 21 wounded in a Russian drone strike on the city of Dnipro late Friday. The local military administration said at least five people were wounded in a Russian ballistic missile strike on Krivoy Rog – Zelensky's hometown.
"The strategic initiative along the entire front line is entirely in the hands of the Russian armed forces," Putin said Thursday during a forum in the Arctic port of Murmansk. "Our troops, our boys are moving forward and every day they are liberating one territory after another, one settlement after another," the Russian president added.
Ukrainian military commanders told the AP that Russia has recently stepped up its attacks to improve its tactical positions ahead of an expected larger offensive.
"They need time until May, that's all," said Ukrainian military analyst Pavlo Narozhny.
Russian and North Korean militaries have retaken most of Russia's Kursk region, which Ukrainian troops invaded last year. Fighting has also escalated on the eastern front in Donetsk and Zaporizhia, the AP notes. Some Ukrainian commanders fear that Russia may divert battle-hardened forces from Kursk to other parts of the eastern front.
"It will be difficult. The forces from Kursk will come, buoyed by their victories there," a Ukrainian battalion commander in the Donetsk region told the AP.
"They are preparing offensive operations on the front that should last six to nine months, almost all of 2025," predicted Ukrainian military analyst Oleksiy Hetman, who has ties to the Ukrainian army's general staff.
Russia entered the talks with a clear advantage in the war. Now that it had regained 80 percent of the territory of the Kursk region before the talks began, its combat units have been activated in other parts of the front line. "The clashes on the front line are not decreasing", Hetman noted. "If they wanted to stop the war, their actions certainly do not show it", the Ukrainian military analyst added.
According to Ukrainian commanders, Russia has recently been increasingly conducting reconnaissance missions to detect and destroy Ukrainian forces that could prevent a future attack. "All this could be a sign that an attack is being prepared in the near future," Hetman warned.