Maria Snegovaya, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), following a failed spring offensive in which Russia lost more territory than it occupied, the Kremlin is likely planning a large-scale onslaught this winter. The enemy hopes to inflict maximum damage on Ukraine.
"Putin will wait for the winter again to resume the large-scale strikes and create a humanitarian crisis to get concessions in the Donbas issue," the publication quoted Snegovaya as saying.
In her view, the strikes will be even more massive than last winter, when Russians launched a massive number of UAVs and missiles daily, targeting Ukraine's critical civilian infrastructure.
Snegovaya noted that harsh winters still hold a significant place in the minds of Ukrainians, and Putin seemingly wants to exploit this fear in a desperate attempt to extract himself from his current predicament.
Kateryna Stepanenko, Russia team lead and deputy director of the Cognitive Warfare Project at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), warned that Russia could expand its target list to strike railway infrastructure and water supply facilities more aggressively.
Experts pointed out that Putin faces growing pressure due to Russia's internal problems. The country's federal budget deficit for the first five months of the year reached $81.4 billion, doubling the figures from the same period last year. At the same time, budget expenditures rose by 17%, while oil and gas revenues fell by nearly 30%. Russia's gold reserves also shrank by 5.7 tons in April, marking the sharpest decline in 25 years.
Economic troubles are increasingly impacting Russia's ability to replenish its army. Contract recruitment rates have dropped to approximately 30,000 people per month, which is below the level of the occupiers' battlefield losses.
On June 5, during a speech at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Russian dictator rejected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's proposal to hold peace talks at the leadership level and reaffirmed his desire to achieve his military objectives in Ukraine.
Specifically, the Russian dictator claimed that Russian forces had captured "two million four hundred and forty thousand square kilometers" (likely meaning 2,440 square kilometers, rather than 2.4 million square kilometers, which is an area far larger than Ukraine).
At the same time, analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) stated that Ukrainian forces liberated more territory than the Russian army occupied in April and May, indicating a decline in Russia's battlefield performance.