The situation 1165 – May 25, 2025

• Russian President Vladimir Putin is leveraging long-range strikes against Ukrainian cities, aggressive rhetorical campaigns, and excessive pessimism in the West about the battlefield situation in Ukraine in a multi-pronged effort to degrade Ukrainian morale and convince the West that a Russian victory in Ukraine is inevitable and that supporting Ukraine is futile.
• Russian forces conducted the largest combined drone and missile strike of the war against Ukraine on the night of May 24 to 25.
• Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev suggested that Russia will occupy most of Ukraine if the West continues to aid Ukraine.
• The Kremlin is attempting to leverage large strike packages and increasingly aggressive rhetorical efforts to distract from the Russian military's poor performance during this current stage of the war.
• Russian forces have eliminated the Ukrainian pocket southwest of Toretsk after a four-month-long offensive operation to level the frontline south and southwest of Kostyantynivka in order to set conditions to advance towards the settlement.
• Russian forces would need roughly a century to seize Medvedev's proposed "buffer zone" at their current rate of advance at the cost of nearly 50 million casualties at current loss rates.
• The Kremlin is also using its bilateral engagements with Ukraine and the United States to maintain the appearance of being interested in peace and delay Western discussion of additional aid to Ukraine.
• Russia's only real hope of winning this war is to convince the West to abandon Ukraine.
• Russian forces recently advanced in Kursk Oblast and near Kharkiv, Chasiv Yar, and Toretsk.

The full update of the Russian offensive 1165 is available on UNDERSTANDING WAR