The Russian summer offensive is a failure so far

This is Weekend Update #200. When I wrote the first of these, in November 2022, I certainly did not expect to be producing these close to four years later. I just went back and read my first update, which was quite an experience. I have taken it out of paywall so that anyone can go down memory lane with me. Read full story. All I can say is that, if you had read these for the past 45 months, you would have had a great deal of discussion of production/logistics and how Trump/populism was shaping US politics and foreign policy. The first story was about the Ukrainian liberation of Kherson, but the next two were about the production war (which most people still do not understand) and how pro-Russian populism in the GOP could be a major problem for Ukraine. Here was how the production section started: It’s remarkable how time and again the ability to produce is overlooked before a war and then becomes so important during the war. This is partly the case because of the almost always faulty lightning war fallacy, which has one of the sides assume that they are so strong the war won’t last long (another reason the faulty pre-war analysis was so problematic). And the political section was a warning that if the GOP captured both houses of congress in the upcoming midterm elections, if would be bad for Ukraine as the Republicans had a growing anti-Ukraine wing. It is worth noting that I did not mention Trump by name in the piece, but did mention that there was a “pro-Russian” wing in the Republican Party that looked to be growing in influence. This is definitely understood in Russia as well, which is why I imagine all eyes are on the US mid-term elections this week. If the Republicans take both houses of Congress, both Ukrainians and Russians will be watching intently to see if the pro-Russian wing of the GOP (Tucker Carlson, MTG, etc) start having some success in influencing policy. You can accuse me of many things – but at least I have highlighted some pretty important aspects of the war. The war has arguably been defined by Russian and Ukrainian war production and the GOP has gone down a pretty dark pro-Russian road. And, as I said last weekend, I will keep producing these as long as Russia is invading Ukraine and as long as people still want to read them. Now the update this week. I will start with a quick look at the state of the Russian summer offensive (if it can be called that) as we are now closer to the end of the summer than the start. It is notable that when Russia advances, the press screams about a coming Ukrainian manpower crisis and collapse, but when the Russians throw away masses of soldiers for no gain, the reporting often moves on to other things. Two other stories. First, I know some people were not pleased with my skepticism about the value of the Wildberries attacks and the argument that fuel attacks needed to get priority. I do think what we have seen over the last week supports that case. Finally, Putin had a rather freaky moment this week when he described his view of international relations. It is so disturbing it is worth noting. It involves orcas, polar bears and a touch of insanity – pure realism from an academic perspective. Russian summer offensive a failure so far As we are almost to September, it would be worth having a quick update on the Russian summer offensive. In August 2025 the press was full of doom about Ukraine, and was writing about inexorable Russian advances and Ukraine collapsing because of manpower shortages. It was almost exactly 12 months ago that the press was writing about a Russian breakthrough around Pokrovsk, how Ukraine was running out of soldiers, etc. There was so much reporting about this supposed reality that the weekend update produced almost exactly a week ago tried to put what we were seeing in perspective and put a little perspective on both the idea of a Russian breakthrough and a Ukrainian collapse (and, yes, both words were used a great deal). Read full story Here was how that update ended: The last three weeks have indicated not massive problems with Ukrainian manpower (which are actually being grossly distorted) but more massive problems with how the war is viewed by the press and analytical community. Sadly, there are no signs that it is going to get better – and it matters, because Ukraine will (and in some ways already is) coming under massive pressure to cede land to Russia. It would be far better to report the land war for what it is – a bloody quagmire for Russia, where the Russian state is expending vast resources and losing mass numbers of soldiers for little or at times no gain. Because that is the truth. This week, as there have been no Russian breakthroughs (ho, ho) there has been much less reporting of the Russian summer offensive and, amazingly, hardly any mention of the Ukrainian manpower crisis which the press wrote about constantly in 2025 and which major analysts were claiming was going to lead to a Ukrainian failure that year. What we have seen this summer and spring has been a Russian offensive that will go down as one of the most extraordinary and bloody wastes in military history. It is worth looking at the Deep State maps of the main areas of the fighting on March 21, 2026 (first day of Spring) and today. The most notable change is the Ukrainian recapturing of land in the middle of the line (the green area to the east of Pokrovske). There are tiny shifts in Russia’s favor in other places, but you do need to look hard to see them. What this means is that in all probability the Ukrainians have liberated slightly (and I do mean slightly) more territory from Russia than the Russians have seized – during the Russian spring/summer offensive season. The exact amount is impossible to know, but it is worth noting that both Deep State and the Institute for the Study of War are estimating that over the summer Ukraine has taken more land from the Russians than the Russians have from them – while disagreeing slightly over the specific figure over the last four weeks. During that time, Deep State has Ukraine taking a net of 3 square miles from Russia, while ISW has Russia taking 20 square miles from Ukraine. If you want to see both tabulations in a helpful metric, Russia Matters has put them together here. And at the same time, Russian troop losses have continued to trend upward. Over the last four weeks, Ukrainian intelligence has estimated that the Russians have lost 36,080 troops in combat. That is a daily number of 1289, which would work out to almost exactly 40,000 during the entire month of August. By the way, I just checked and the Ukrainian claim of Russian losses for the last 24 hours was exactly 1,400—so the final figure might be over 40,000. This is an unsustainable loss rate, unless Russia finds a new way to generate manpower in large numbers. The Guardian, in a piece published on August 28, estimated that Russia is losing 6000 more troops a month than it can raise. Here is a quote from that piece: “We estimate that the gap between the number of people Russia is losing to casualties and the number they’re being able to recruit is around 6,000 a month at the moment,” one western official said. To change the trajectory on those losses, either Russia will have to greatly increase the number of soldiers it is recruiting from the rest of the world or Putin will have to enforce a greater mobilization across Russian society. When it comes to recruiting from around the world, Shaun Pinner just released a really interesting piece about how many POWs in Ukrainian custody are coming from outside Russia. When it comes to internal mobilization, the Ukrainians interestingly still say that Putin is hoping to force more soldiers from the periphery into the army, another 300,000 after the upcoming elections. That remains his plan, they say, because he still does not want to enforce a general mobilization on Moscow or St Petersburg. This “peripheral” mobilization will not be easy as these peripheral areas have already been combed through for soldiers. Rhose forced in now will be the lowest of the low in the priority list. So, the Russians have hardly advanced this summer, have probably lost more land than they have gained in the last few months, are losing considerably more soldiers every month than they can generate and are facing some pretty serious internal questions about how to find more soldiers. What we are seeing is a summer offensive of failure. Why fuel attacks need to be prioritized: an update I know not everyone enjoyed my skepticism last weekend about the Wildberries strategic air campaign by the Ukrainians. And certainly the Ukrainian decision makers are not backing away from such a campaign, and they even broadened it this week to include the second largest Russian online retailer, Ozon. That being said, the important economic signs this week were arguably about the stresses being shown in the Russian fuel system. The most important piece of evidence there is a report that Russian output of refined fuel can now only meet 70% of Russia’s own domestic production. There was an worthwhile report on that in the Japan Times. Here is how that story started. Russia’s gasoline production fell to about 70% of domestic consumption levels by the end of August after a series of drone attacks forced major refineries to suspend operations, according to two industry sources. Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure in a bid to curb Moscow’s revenues, creating a fuel crisis that has forced Russia to import petroleum products and maintain sales restrictions across the country. After a brief respite at the end of July, when some local authorities began easing or lifting restrictions on fuel sales, shortages returned to Russian regions in August. And there are concrete signs that this shortage is real and spreading. Lines for Russian motorists to buy fuel are back, and in some cases this is real even close to Moscow. Russia seems to be living hand to mouth when it comes to refined fuels, which does not bode well for the Russians with winter approaching. Overall, this means Russia will have to import refined fuels (very expensive) to just keep its economy and war machine functioning. This has been the situation over the last month. Now it seems to be getting more acute. It is the exact opposite of the first few years of the war, when oil was basically an income generating system for Russia. Russia having to import fuel to keep functioning also opens up another possible target mix for Ukraine – fuel imports into Russia. This will have to come in by ship (I do not know of any pipelines that run into Russia – but I may be wrong). That means there will be limited pumping systems that can handle oil coming into Russia – and they should be hit. Ukraine did make some refinery attacks this week. The Ukrainians hit the large refinery at Yaroslavl for instance. And, last night the Ukrainians also reportedly attacked the large KINEF refinery near St Petersburg. This is all good, but the campaign could always be more consistent and with a deeper target set. It must include not just refineries, but ports, pipelines, etc. The system is showing real stress. It is getting by on quick repairs that are becoming less and less effective. It is Russia’s weak point as it involves everything – income generation, military operations, the functioning of the economy, etc. Putin, orcas, polar bears and insanity Speaking just the other day to faculty and students at a Moscow University, Vladimir Putin justified his invasion of Ukraine with a truly wild analogy. There are killer whales living nearby. They eat these bears up like small fry. Yes, they just attack as a pack – boom! – and tear them to pieces. It’s all very interesting. Yes, that’s the food chain. Children need to be told about this too, so they understand what kind of world we’re living in and why we are carrying out the special military operation. First of all, this is wrong. Orcas do not kill polar bears (at least according to an internet search). However what is even worse is that it makes no sense. Is Russia the polar bear and NATO the orcas? Or is Ukraine the polar bear and Russia (with China and Iran perhaps) a pack of orcas. And you know the great tragedy of international relations? It is that there are serious scholars, or at least those who some take seriously, who articulate this kind of a “realist” framework as automatic when it is far from it. If there is one thing we can say that has been shown, it is that states do not behave like this by nature. The US actually put together a brilliant alliance system that for 75 years was the exact opposite of a pack of killer whales attacking a polar bear. If it had wanted to, it could have crushed Russia. It did not. Today’s Europe is also based on the reality that states do not have to do this to each other. One of the reasons that Ukraine must win this war is to undermine this way of thinking. If Putin wins, with the help of Donald Trump, the orcas might actually start ripping the polar bears to pieces. Phillips O’Brien is a pr0fessor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrew. This article originally appeared on his substack Phillips’s Newsletter. It is republished with permission.