September 2026 is Putin's deadline to seize the Donbas—but reality tells a different story. Russia's spring offensive has failed, casualties are reaching historic levels, and Ukraine is inflicting devastating losses on Russian troops, armor, artillery, and logistics. With gains measured in mere kilometers and the Donetsk Fortress Belt still standing strong, Moscow's summer campaign is already unraveling. In this video, we break down why Putin's Donbas dream is slipping further out of reach.
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00:00September 2026. That's the deadline that Ukraine's military intelligence says that Putin has put in
00:06place for the fall of the Donbass. Putin is living in a fantasy world. The only way for
00:11that deadline to have a hint of realism would be if Russia's spring and summer offensive was going
00:15to plan. Hint, it isn't. Ukraine has Russian forces cornered as the summer offensive has
00:21collapsed before it even started. Russia's army is being torn apart. The losses are historic.
00:27The impact on the summer offensive is devastating. Russia hasn't bled like this since World War II.
00:33No matter how desperately Putin wants it, this summer isn't going to come close to delivering
00:38the Donbass. Here's what was supposed to happen this summer. Over the spring, Russia launched a
00:43grand offensive, with a focus placed on the Donetsk Fortress Belt. That concentration of four cities,
00:49which stretches about 50 kilometers on the far edge of Donetsk, is the last thing standing in
00:54the way of Russia claiming the Donbass region. So the Russian goal for the spring was simple.
00:58Unleash attacks by the thousands to weaken the Fortress Belt, ready for the summer, where the
01:03belt falls and the goal of taking the Donbass by September could be reached. Putin's problem is that
01:08for this plan to work, Russia needs a military that is in tip-top shape. The Fortress Belt has its
01:13name
01:14for a reason. It's lethal to any army that is stupid enough to attack it. So Russia has been attacking
01:19it. And it's been failing. Badly. A terrible spring has set up a summer that is not going
01:24as Putin expected it to go. The Russian military is being torn apart. May's numbers show us
01:30everything that we need to know to see that the summer offensive has collapsed before it
01:34even got off the ground. Let's start with personnel. In a June 2nd report, Ukraine Today revealed
01:39that Russia's wannabe occupiers suffered 33,760 casualties in May. That breaks down to 1,089 casualties
01:48per day. This isn't quite a record for 2026. Russia has suffered worse months than May 2026. However,
01:54there's a ratio at play here that showcases why May has been so bad and why it's setting Putin's
01:59forces up for a fall in the summer. Before we get to that, it's not like May was a complete
02:04one-off
02:04for Russia either. This casualty rate comes on the back of two months where Russia's monthly losses
02:09exceeded 35,000. According to United24 Media, Russia lost 35,351 soldiers in March, followed by
02:1735,203 troops in April. May's 33,760 is actually an improvement for Putin's forces, as insane as that
02:25is to say. Still, what all of this means is that the first five months of 2026 have seen Russia
02:30burn
02:30through around 130,000 of its soldiers. These are figures that haven't been seen since World War II.
02:36But it gets much worse for Russia. We mentioned a ratio a moment ago. Ukraine Today has some
02:41interesting figures that reveal how bad May truly was for Russia. It claims that Russia's forces
02:47managed to seize about 88 square kilometers of Ukraine in May. But Ukraine was also counter-attacking.
02:52The Ukrainian military liberated 68 square kilometers, leaving Russia with a net gain of 20 square kilometers.
02:59Let's do the maths on this. Divide 33,760 people by 20 square kilometers and you get 1,688 dead
03:06or injured
03:07Russian soldiers per square kilometer that Russia actually gained from Ukraine in May. Putin has
03:12always bought territory with the blood of his people, but this is an utterly ridiculous number.
03:16And this might even be a best-case scenario for Putin. According to Interfax, Russia had an even
03:22smaller net gain than Ukraine Today suggests. Despite increasing the number of its assault operations
03:27by 37.5% in May, meaning it launched more than 7,000 individual attacks on Ukrainian positions,
03:33Russia only managed a net gain of 14 square kilometers, Interfax says, providing data from
03:39the open-source military analysis organization Deep State. Plugging the numbers into this pitiful
03:44rate of advance gives us a staggering 2,411 Russian soldiers for every square kilometer that Russia
03:49gained in May. That's not just humiliating for Putin, that's catastrophic for the summer offensive.
03:55The entire point of launching over 7,000 assaults in May, along with the thousands more that Russia
04:00conducted during the spring, was to take enough territory to enable Russia to attack the Donetsk
04:05Fortress Belt. That was critical to the entire plan, but what Russia has actually taken is so small
04:11that the summer is going to be spent making mediocre gains against a defense that is shattering the Russian
04:15military. It's not like Russia can claim to have done well during March and April either. According to
04:21the Institute for the Study of War , Russia only managed a net gain of 23.04 square kilometers of
04:27Ukraine in
04:28March, when not accounting for infiltration attempts that don't produce true holds over territory. In April,
04:34Russia suffered a net loss of 116.01 square kilometers. If we put all of this together, it means that
04:40Russia is
04:40actually down by about 80 square kilometers for the spring. That's Russia's setup for the summer. A net loss of
04:46territory and around 100,000 of its soldiers dead or injured in three months of spring. Comparing all of this
04:52to Russia's
04:522025 rate of advance will have Putin weeping. Ukraine today says that Russia was gaining between 400 and
04:58500 square kilometers per month in the spring of 2025 for a similar number of losses. That's hardly
05:04impressive. Russia's rate of advance was glacial even back then. Now the rate of advance can't even claim
05:10to be that. The tide has turned. Russia is losing territory while still sacrificing thousands upon
05:16thousands of its soldiers. In May alone, the monthly rate of territorial capture fell by around 25 times
05:22when considering net territorial gains. Russia hasn't bled like this since World War II, and it eventually
05:28ended up on the winning side of that conflict. Frankly, what happened in the spring shouldn't be a
05:33surprise to Putin. As far back as January, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS,
05:39was pointing out that Russia's military had suffered more losses than any other major power since World War II.
05:45Back then, Russia's total casualty rate for the war stood at about 1.2 million. Now it's closing in on
05:501.37 million, per Ukraine's Ministry of Finance. Russia has suffered the highest casualty rate of
05:56any major power in any war since World War II, and its military has performed poorly, with historically
06:01slow rates of advance and little new territory to show for its efforts over the last two years,
06:06CSIS said in January. Somehow Putin's patsies have only gotten worse since then.
06:11So on the manpower and territory fronts, Russia is already off to a dreadful start in the summer
06:16offensive. Russia needed territory that it could use as a springboard for assaults on the Donetsk
06:21fortress belt. It doesn't have that territory. Russia also needed soldiers to continue the meat
06:26grinder strategy that Putin loves so much. Over 100,000 gone in three months means that Russia doesn't
06:31have the soldiers it needs either. It still has plenty of troops, of course, but all it's really doing is
06:36cycling in poorly trained reserves to die in Ukraine's vast kill zones, which isn't how you
06:41make progress. But here's where things get interesting. If Russia is going to make any
06:46serious strategic gains against Ukraine in the summer, it needs to bring armor to the battlefield.
06:52Mechanized assaults have to back up the meat that Putin is sending on the attack,
06:55which means that Russia needs to protect its tanks so they can be used to destroy Ukrainian defenses.
07:00On the surface, it seems that Russia is doing that.
07:03But all is not as it seems. According to Ukraine Today's figures, Russia lost 63 of its main battle
07:09tanks during May. That's a record low for Russia, which might be enough to make Putin smile.
07:14If you're not paying attention to what's really happening in Ukraine, this low number of losses
07:17would make it seem as though Russia has adapted its mechanized strategy, to the point where it's
07:22finally managing to protect its tanks against Ukraine's drones and anti-tank weapons. That's not
07:26what's happening. Losing just 63 tanks isn't the good news that it appears to be, because it actually
07:32shows us that Russia simply hasn't been using its tanks in assaults. We get a hint of this in the
07:37territory figures we shared earlier. If tanks were in play, those figures would be much higher.
07:41The fact that Russia is actively losing ground means that it hasn't found some new genius tank
07:46strategy. It simply isn't using tanks the way it used to, and that's a credit to Ukraine's ability
07:50to massacre Russia's metal. It's not like Russia has completely run out of tanks either. Yes,
07:55the country has lost almost 12,000 tanks since the beginning of the war, Ukraine's Ministry of Finance
08:00says. Plus, a lot has been made out of the fact that Russia has been drawing heavily from its Soviet
08:05era stockpiles to keep its metal on the field, and that those stockpiles are running low. However,
08:10Russia is still receiving tanks. In a May 9th report, Euromiden Press revealed that deliveries of
08:15T-90M tanks, which Putin has called the best main battle tank in the world, are still being made.
08:21Russia's tank manufacturers are also churning out T-80 and T-72 models that are upgraded versions of
08:27the Soviet-era platforms that Russia has used so heavily in Ukraine. Russia has also been quick to
08:32talk about its T-14 Armata tank, though it's been far slower to bring that tank to the battlefield in
08:37Ukraine. The point here is that tanks are being made, albeit not at the rate needed to replenish the
08:42losses that Russia has already experienced. So what gives? Why is Russia fielding fewer tanks than it
08:47has at any other time during the invasion? The answer can be distilled into a single word, fear.
08:53Russia has tanks, but it's far too scared to use them. We see that in the story of the T
08:57-14. In a
08:59July 2025 piece, Defense Magazine pointed out that the T-14 has yet to make its debut in the war.
09:04The piece suggests that Russian officials are purposefully holding the tank back,
09:08because they've seen what Ukraine has done to the metal sent onto its territory so far,
09:12and they're terrified of exposing the T-14's real-world performance.
09:16Right now Russia can talk about how the T-14 is one of the best tanks in the world,
09:20and through all of that talking, it can make sales to buyers. If the T-14 has flaws,
09:25Russia wants to hide them. Ukraine would expose those flaws. So the T-14, which Russia unveiled
09:31way back in its 2015 victory day parade, is nowhere to be seen. Nobody knows if that tank can live
09:36up to
09:36the hype, and Russia has no intention of allowing Ukraine to give the world answers.
09:39We see a similar situation with the T-90. The supposed best tank in the world has at least
09:44seen action in Ukraine, but it hasn't been the sort of game changer that Russia claims it to be.
09:49Floors have been exposed. For instance, the T-90's ammunition is kept inside a carousel that is inside
09:55the tank's crew area. One strike against that carousel sets the whole thing ablaze, engulfing
09:59the crew in a deadly inferno. There have been recorded instances of T-90 turrets spinning out of
10:05control after a strike, highlighting a disastrous bug in the tank's software that leads to it becoming
10:10useless even if the T-90 survives an attack. And that's another point. T-90s aren't surviving.
10:16They're going into Ukraine and being destroyed, just like the older Soviet models that Russia has
10:20relied upon for much of the war. All of this adds up to Russia launching fewer mechanized assaults.
10:25Even when it tries, Putin's patsies often refuse. That was the situation in Kharkiv back in April,
10:31when Gwara media reported that Russian forces were outright refusing to launch assaults in
10:35tanks and armored vehicles due to their fear of Ukraine's drones. Infiltration in small groups
10:41is the preferred strategy, as these groups are harder for drones to target than big lumps of
10:45metal rolling across the battlefield. So what a record low of 63 tanks destroyed really tells us
10:50is that Ukraine has neutralized what was once one of Russia's major battlefield advantages.
10:55And, from a pure cost-of-warfare perspective, this makes sense.
10:58A drone that can cost Ukraine as little as $500 to make is now capable of destroying tanks
11:03that cost several millions of dollars. The return on investment is immense for Ukraine,
11:08and it's an economic killer for Russia. As for the summer, what this all means is that
11:12Russia isn't going to do much better in the summer months than it did during the spring.
11:16It needs to launch mechanized assaults to have any chance of taking larger Ukrainian
11:20settlements before Putin's September deadline for the Donbass. But those assaults aren't happening,
11:24and they're failing when they're attempted. That locks Russia's forces into much slower,
11:29foot-paced assaults which are as much about avoiding Ukraine's drones as they are about
11:33making real gains. Territory doesn't fall against an army that can barely move. And it's not just tanks
11:39that are a problem for Russia as it moves into the summer. The country's vehicle situation isn't much better.
11:44Now, nothing particularly special happened in May when it comes to Russia's armored vehicle losses.
11:48Ukraine today reports that Russia lost 163 types of these vehicles, which is a number that's in
11:54keeping with the amount of armored vehicles Russia was losing per month during the summer of 2025.
11:58If you're wondering why Ukraine didn't break records on this front, the same issues that apply to
12:02Russia's use of tanks also apply to its armored vehicles. Russia only uses armored vehicles on the
12:07front when it's absolutely necessary. Ukraine's drones are everywhere, and they can zero in on these big
12:12metal targets just as easily as they can attack tanks. However, it's not the armored vehicles that are the
12:17important part of the story when it comes to the collapse of the Russian summer offensive before
12:21it's even gotten off the ground. The real story lies behind the front lines, where the other
12:25vehicles that Russia uses are being torn to shreds every single day. This aspect of Ukraine's strategy
12:31is a true game-changer when it comes to the summer. But before we explain why, you are watching the
12:36military show. If you're getting insight from the channel, hit the subscribe button to ensure you don't
12:40miss what we have coming next. So armored vehicles aren't going to be a big factor in the summer.
12:46Ukraine hits them when it finds them, but they're almost as rare a sight on the front these days as
12:50tanks. However, dozens of kilometers behind the front lines, Russia uses plenty of other types of
12:56vehicles. Trucks transport equipment and fuel that eventually make their way to the front. Regular cars
13:02are used to ferry Russian soldiers from point to point behind the lines. Russia has a massive logistical
13:07operation in place in the near rear, and it's essential to everything that Putin wants his patsies to
13:11achieve during the summer. You might be able to see where we're going with this. May has been a
13:15record-breaking month for Ukraine when it comes to destroying the vehicles that form the backbone
13:19of Russia's logistical network. On May 31st, Ukraine did something remarkable. That something was
13:26buried in a raft of daily figures shared by Metzer, but it's vital when it comes to Russian logistics.
13:31May 31st saw Ukraine destroy 524 of Russia's motor vehicles and fuel tankers behind the front lines.
13:38That was a new daily record, and it came off the back of Ukraine having already broken its record
13:43for taking out this particular type of target two days prior. May 29th saw Ukraine destroy 483 of
13:49Russia's vehicles. By the end of the month, Russia's losses of vehicles and fuel tankers had exceeded 8,000
13:55when taking the May 31st figures into account. Why does this matter in the context of the upcoming
14:00failure of Russia to achieve its goals in the summer? Two words, logistics lockdown.
14:06That's the informal name of a program that Ukraine has created that is designed to shatter Russian
14:10logistics behind the front lines. Taking out vehicles and tankers in their thousands each
14:15month is a key part of this program. The logic is simple. Russia uses vehicles and tankers to
14:20move equipment and fuel to soldiers on and around the front lines. When those vehicles are being taken
14:25out, fewer supplies reach the soldiers attacking the Donetsk fortress belt and the other regions of
14:29Ukraine where Putin wants his forces to advance. The result is the losses and ridiculously low
14:34territory gains that we spoke about. It's not just Ukraine's fearsome defenses that are causing Russia
14:39to perform worse than any major military since World War II. The jobs of Ukraine's defenders on
14:43the front are being made easier because attacks in the near rear are depriving Russia's forces of the
14:48ammo and armor that they need to launch stronger assaults. Ukraine is funneling cash into the military
14:53units that are pushing this strategy. According to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, around $113
14:59million has been set aside for the logistics lockdown program, the first chunk of which has
15:04already been delivered to units that have set the standard for shattering Russian logistics behind the
15:08front. The destruction of so many of Russia's logistical vehicles is just a microcosm of a much
15:13larger program that is designed to cripple the summer offensive. In a June 1 report, the New Voice of
15:18Ukraine noted that this campaign spread so far and deep that it's causing Russia issues in territories
15:24that are supposed to be fully occupied, including the Donbass region of Luhansk and the Crimean
15:28Peninsula. Ukraine's Third Army Corps has even gone so far as to claim that Ukraine now owns the skies
15:34in Luhansk, which is a region that Russia says it controls completely. In a series of Luhansk attacks,
15:39Ukraine's drones penetrated the entire region and were able to fly deep enough to launch strikes on
15:44targets inside Russia that are 205 kilometers behind the front lines. Russia's air defenses
15:50failed to stop these attacks. We'll be getting to why later. What's most important here is the
15:55impact that Ukraine's constant destruction of Russia's logistical vehicles has on the summer
15:59offensive. Simply put, these strikes are devastating. Logistical nodes are being choked off all over the
16:05occupied territories. Even if Russia can find alternative routes, it's being forced to delay the
16:10transport of supplies and soldiers to the front. There is no real safe zone for Russia inside
16:15Ukraine anymore. Ukraine's drones can hit anything and record-breaking numbers of vehicles being
16:20destroyed are the signal to Russia that the summer isn't going to go well for its forces on the front.
16:25Next, we come to artillery. Russia needs artillery to shell the defensive positions that Ukraine sets
16:31up. This is a pretty standard ground-based strategy. Infantry is supported by artillery that
16:35offers fire support, which weakens Ukraine's defenses enough for troops on the ground to make
16:40breakthroughs. There's nothing revolutionary about Russia's strategy here, and it's an approach that
16:44works as long as you have enough artillery. You can probably already guess the issue we're about to
16:49bring up. Ukraine Today says that Russia lost 1,993 units of artillery in May, which is yet another
16:56record high. And the reason that these losses were so extensive is the strategy we just outlined.
17:00Russia needs artillery to provide fire supports to its troops on the ground. The issue Russia faces is that
17:06it's burned through most of its modern artillery. What it's left with, Ukraine Today says, is an array
17:11of ancient Soviet-era artillery, much of which is towed, and some of which is basically homebrew
17:16weaponry that Russia is building on the fly. Not only do these types of weapons have lower firing ranges
17:21in their modern equivalents, meaning they need to be pulled much closer to the front to have any sort
17:25of effect, but they're also completely lacking in mobility. Ukraine's drones are already such a
17:30problem for Russia's tanks and vehicles that they're being pulled from the front. Imagine how
17:34much damage they can do to stationary artillery units. You don't need to imagine as the figures
17:38speak for themselves. What we're seeing here is the final nail in the coffin of an artillery
17:43advantage that Russia has held for much of the war and that Putin desperately needed for the summer
17:47offensive. The first signs that Ukraine was turning the tide on artillery emerged in May 2025.
17:53That month saw Pravda speculate that Russia was starting to run out of artillery it could send to the
17:57front. The same problem that affected the country's tank strategy was also in play here.
18:02Russia was drawing down on finite Soviet-era stockpiles that were being destroyed in Ukraine.
18:07Russia's production of new artillery systems and barrels wasn't keeping up with the demands
18:11of attrition on the front, Pravda said at the time. And sure enough, we'd already started to see
18:15Russia's artillery advantage slip as a result. The previous February, the commander-in-chief of
18:20Ukraine's armed forces, Alexander Siesky, revealed that Russia's artillery advantage had already
18:25collapsed from 10 units to each one that Ukraine fielded, to just 2 to 1 in some areas of the
18:29front. Ukraine's drones were the main reason why, and those drones have been eating up Russian
18:34artillery ever since. Artillery still plays a role in the modern battlefield, but drones flying in
18:39their thousands make it much harder for artillery to fire without giving away its position. And once a
18:44drone operator knows where a Russian artillery unit is, there will only be one winner. Between an airborne
18:49and fast-moving drone and a creaking Soviet-era artillery system, the artillery loses every single time.
18:55This combination of shortages that started rearing their heads in 2025 and Russia's inability to
19:00counter Ukraine's drones makes the record-breaking artillery losses Russia experienced in May all
19:05the more devastating. These are units that Russia won't be getting back or replenishing.
19:10Come the summer, the lack of fire support that results from Ukraine destroying so much of Russia's
19:14artillery is really going to bear down. We've already seen it in Russia's massive losses and
19:19microscopic gains in the spring. None of this is going to get better for Russia as the war moves deeper
19:24into the summer. Okay, Putin might think, artillery isn't where I need it to be, but Russia still has
19:29plenty of multiple launch rocket systems we can use to provide fire support and hit Ukraine in the rear.
19:33But does it? MLRS losses in May were as high as they've been since Ukraine's summer 2023
19:39counterattack, which indicates that Russia won't even be able to rely on these types of systems to
19:43prop up the summer invasion. According to Ukraine Today, Russia lost 63 MLRS units in May.
19:49That's the highest number of monthly MLRS losses since 2023, and it's only exceeded by the 67
19:55units that Russia lost in July 2023 and the 66 that it lost amidst another massive offensive in November
20:002023. Just as with Russian artillery, there were signs that MLRS systems were struggling to make
20:06the dent that Putin needed as far back as 2024. At the end of that year, UAY was reporting that
20:11Ukraine had destroyed a record-low number of Russian MLRS. That mattered for the same reason that this
20:17May's record low of tank destruction mattered. It was a signal that Russia was running low on a
20:21critical system that it needs to make advances on the front. The reduction in MLRS numbers points to
20:25a significant depletion of the Russian army's weapon reserves. This is a serious signal, as rocket
20:31artillery has been one of the main tools of Russian pressure on the front, UAY said at the time.
20:35It also followed up this initial report with the second in December 2024, which pointed out that no
20:40Russian MLRS units had been lost up to December 13. Again, that was a sign of the depletion of Soviet
20:46-era
20:46stockpiles. Fast forward to May 2026 and record numbers of MLRS units have been destroyed.
20:52That's a sign that Russia has managed to fix its MLRS stockpile in time for the 2026 summer offensive,
20:57right? After all, you can't have record destruction numbers unless Russia is fielding more units.
21:02That's true, but again, the numbers don't tell the full story.
21:05The MLRS units that Russia is bringing to the front in the spring and summer of 2026 are a far
21:10cry from
21:10those that it had back in 2024 and earlier. Ukraine Today reveals that many of the MLRS Russia is using
21:16today are homemade variants of Soviet-era systems that are simply no match for Ukraine's drones.
21:21And if it's not these makeshift MLRS that Russia's forces are using, then it's North Korean Type 75
21:26systems. These 170mm MLRS units are towed, which is already a problem when it comes to avoiding
21:32Ukraine's never-ending swarm of drones. These aren't even the best MLRS that Russia has received from
21:37North Korea. When shortages started happening, North Korea sent over 240mm MLRS units to supplement
21:43Russian stockpiles. They ended up being destroyed. What Russia is left with are the weaker Type 75s,
21:49and it's getting so desperate to maximize the impact of those systems that it's strapping them
21:53to ground robotic systems just to give them some semblance of mobility. These ideas could be called
21:58innovative, but record numbers of MLRS units destroyed in May show us that it's not working.
22:04So far, the losses that we've covered amount to a historic failure on Russia's part to retain the
22:08types of equipment that it needs to launch its summer offensive. Combine these equipment losses with
22:13Russia's casualty rate and its pathetic rate of advance, and there is simply no platform in place
22:18from which Russia can launch the sort of Donbass-destroying offensive that is supposed to
22:22lead to the collapse of the region by September. The summer offensive has failed before it's even
22:27started. How could Ukraine make all of this so much worse for Russia? We hinted at it earlier,
22:31the rampant destruction of Russian air defenses. In May, Ukraine took out 42 units of Russia's air defenses.
22:38That isn't a record-breaking figure, but it is the highest single-month tally since June 2024,
22:42when Russia lost 59 air defense units to Ukraine strikes. What we see here is a crescendo in
22:47Ukraine's systematic campaign to take out as many air defense systems as it can in the occupied
22:52territories. This campaign began long before Russia launched the spring offensive that was supposed to
22:57lead to massive gains in the summer. Ukraine has been escalating its destruction of Russia's defenses
23:02since last year. Between March and May 10th, Ukraine destroyed 37 Russian air defense systems,
23:09electronic warfare assets, and radars, which was twice the number it destroyed in October 2025.
23:14The Key Post reports, Ukraine repeated that feat in May and added five more on top,
23:18and this spells bad news for Russia in the summer for a simple reason. Losing air defenses opens the door
23:24for Ukraine's medium and long-range attacks. Do you remember the record-breaking strikes Ukraine made
23:28against Russia's vehicles this May? What about the journeys that Ukraine's drones made in the skies
23:33of Luhansk that prompted the 3rd Army Corps to proclaim that Ukraine now owns the Luhansk skies?
23:38Those sorts of feats wouldn't be possible if Ukraine hadn't first launched a campaign to destroy
23:42Russia's air defenses. With each system downed comes a new aerial corridor that Ukraine can exploit for its
23:48strikes in the occupied rear and inside Russia itself. Those strikes whittle away at the Russian war
23:53machine. We see that in the logistical aspects we've already discussed, but every attack that Ukraine
23:58conducts against Russian oil and military industry on Putin's turf can be directly linked to the
24:03shattering of Russia's air defenses inside Ukraine. As more infrastructure and equipment in the rear
24:08get destroyed, Russia weakens on the front. May has shown us that Ukraine isn't in any mood to slow down
24:14when it comes to Russia's air defenses. If anything, Ukraine is ramping up. This summer, the result
24:19will be clear on the battlefield. More failed assaults, more equipment burning, more momentum
24:24in Ukraine's favor as Russia fails to come close to hitting the targets that Putin has set for the
24:28summer. We'll put it bluntly, Russia's summer goals are unattainable. Putin needs a way out as the
24:34current phase of the Ukraine war is the least successful that Russia has experienced since the
24:38summer of 2023. Russia's answer to all of this has been to escalate its attacks on civilians as the
24:43ground invasion falls apart. On June 2nd, Russia launched an aerial assault that included
24:4873 missiles and 656 drones all across Ukraine. The Atlantic Council reports that this attack was
24:54significant because around 30 of the missiles used were ballistic and over 100 Ukrainian civilians
24:59were killed or injured in the strikes. But that's all that Putin has left this summer, blatant war
25:05crimes that cover up the failure of a summer offensive that hasn't even gotten off the ground yet.
25:09And it's not even as though Russia's strategy of targeting Ukraine's civilians is going to work out.
25:13As Putin watches his military collapse to World War II levels of losses,
25:18Ukraine has shown that it can give just as good as it gets on the long-range front.
25:22Just days before the June 2nd strike, Russia unleashed another aerial assault that included
25:26the hypersonic Oreshnik. Ukraine's response was fast, precise and devastating.
25:31Find out all about it by watching our video and remember to subscribe to The Military Show
25:35as we track the Russian summer offensive and the many failures that lie in store for Putin
25:39over the next few months and thank you for watching.
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