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Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute believes the main aim of the summer offensive is “the expansion of the Russian push in Donbas”, with the aim of cutting supply lines and then giving their forces a route to both north and south.

Kyiv said Thursday its defensive moves had slowed the speed of Moscow’s advance. Russian attacks are likely to continue, said analyst Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute in London. “Russia’s aim is not to achieve a grand breakthrough, but rather to convince Ukraine that it can keep up an inexorable advance, kilometer by kilometer, along the front,” Watling wrote in an email to VOA.

Shortfalls in Ukrainian artillery and an absence of defences against ballistic missiles and long-range glide bombs have been well observed in recent weeks. But Jack Watling, a land warfare expert at the Royal United Services Institute thinktank, said Russia was also overcoming the limitations of its undertrained army and beginning “to compound its advantages” with munitions.