Putin’s ‘Full Bore’ Ukraine Offensive Could Be a Disaster for Russia

Key Points – Russia is reportedly massing approximately 50,000 troops, including significant numbers of North Korean soldiers, near Ukraine’s Sumy region for a potential summer offensive aimed at creating a “buffer zone.”

-However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has expressed skepticism about Russia’s capability to launch a successful new major ground offensive, citing their current resource limitations despite daily missile and drone attacks.

-After Russia’s 2022 mobilization efforts led to massive casualties and public backlash, Moscow has increasingly relied on North Korea for manpower and ammunition. Meanwhile, peace negotiations remain stalled, with Putin maintaining maximalist demands from March 2022.

Putin’s New Offensive to Win the Ukraine War?

Russian President Vladimir Putin refused to join negotiations for a peaceful end to the war in Ukraine that took place in Istanbul on May 15th.

A second round has now been proposed for 2 June, but there is no shortage of those who have minimal – if any – expectations of him showing up this time either.

Moscow’s negotiating position remains the same as it was in March 2022, roughly two weeks after the initial invasion of Ukraine fizzled out.

Putin still demands control of all four Ukrainian provinces that his troops control only parts of, near-unilateral disarmament by the Ukrainian military, and a list of other demands that Kyiv finds unacceptable.

Will Russia Go All Out to Win the Ukraine War?

So, if there is no breakthrough this week and the two sides remain locked in a bloody conflict the question is how or could Russia make an all-out push to try and defeat Ukraine.  Russia appears to be preparing for a summer offensive and has massed 50,000 troops on the northeastern border near the Sumy region.

However, the size of this Russian force is not necessarily a guarantee of success.

Speaking to the press this past week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that while Russia delivers constant ultimatums and threats and launches missile and drone attacks on Ukraine almost daily, Moscow still lacks the resources to launch a new major ground offensive successfully.

“Their largest, strongest troops are currently in the Kursk direction,” Zelensky said, explaining that these 50,000 troops have aspirations to advance into Ukraine and create a buffer zone roughly six miles wide.  However, he stated, that given Ukrainian defenses in the region, such an outcome is unlikely, he said.

“I think they understand that they lack these capabilities,” Zelensky said.

Does Putin Have Options?

Putin has tried more than once to create a force that would be able to break the Ukrainian lines at some point by any means other than sheer numbers.

His 2022 mobilization program did elevate his troop numbers, with the Russian government announcing that the target of 300,000 mobilized personnel was met. Still, most of those have either been killed, wounded, or are missing as of today.

There was also a reaction in the form of public unrest to this mobilization. In addition to the phenomenon of some 1 million Russian men of draft age fleeing the country to avoid conscription.

The dual backlash was to such dimensions that the question was whether Putin could devise some other scheme.

Press-ganging his own people to boost the number of troops that could be thrown into the front lines against Ukraine’s military no longer seemed a viable option, so he had to think of something else.

He did.

The solution – and herein lies a clue to the limits of (or even lack of) creativity on the part of the former KGB Lt. Col.’s strategic thinking – was almost solely focused on creating more mass in his forces on the front.  Thus, he turned to one of the few avenues open to the former KGB Lt. Col.

This came down rapidly, expanding on one of the few alliances that he already had that could provide the manpower he needed, specifically that between Russia and the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK).

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Since last year, large numbers of DPRK soldiers have appeared on the Ukrainian battlefield, marking a new level of involvement by Pyongyang in supporting and participating in Russia’s war.   It was the proverbial “next shoe to fall” after North Korea had reportedly been supplying Russia with artillery shells since the first year of the war, and then began delivering ballistic missiles to Moscow in late 2023.

By October 2024, Japanese, South Korean and western intelligence sources claimed that North Korea was now providing half of all artillery shells being used by Russia in Ukraine.

Little to No Surge Capacity

As an Atlantic Council report on the DPRK involvement in the war reads, “the presence of North Korean soldiers in Ukraine would risk transforming the largest European invasion since World War II into a truly global conflict. It would also serve to highlight the mounting manpower challenges Vladimir Putin faces as he looks to maintain a war of attrition amid staggering Russian losses.”

“When Putin first took the decision to launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, he seems to have genuinely believed his troops would not encounter any serious resistance and would instead be welcomed as liberators.  This proved to be a massive miscalculation.”

Putin Might Not Have ‘Much Left’ if Offensive Fails

The 50,000 troops that Putin is now preparing for some offensive is a “final push” that he can launch, but if that effort is unsuccessful, there is not much left in the way of other forces that he can bring to bear. Very few people believe that he will participate in any peace negotiations. Still, he will instead play for time and hope that the US and its allies will eventually get tired of the situation.

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There is less evidence of this all the time. But if Putin is counting on some miraculous solution to his dilemma there would appear to be none in the offing.

Putin and his inner circle “are dragging out negotiations and trying to drag the US into endless, meaningless discussions about fake conditions to buy time and then try to seize even more land,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated this past April.

“Putin wants to negotiate territory from a stronger position. He only thinks about war.  So, our job – all of us – is defense in the broadest sense of the word,” Zelensky added.

About the Author:

Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw.  He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design.  Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.

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