Russia wants to occupy Ukraine up to Dnipro and seize Odesa - Zelenskyy's Office
Photo: Pavlo Palisa (president.gov.ua)
While US President Donald Trump is trying to persuade Moscow to engage in peace talks, Russia has large-scale plans to further occupy territories that could cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea, Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Pavlo Palisa says.
According to Ukrainian military intelligence, Moscow is seeking to expand its occupation zone in eastern Ukraine by the end of 2025. The plans include the capture of the entire Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the fall, as well as the creation of a so-called buffer zone along the northern border with Russia.
Moscow's plans for next year are even more ambitious. Palisa told reporters gathered at the Ukrainian embassy in Washington that Vladimir Putin wants to occupy all of Ukraine east of Dnipro, which divides the country in half.
He said Russia also hopes to seize the southern Ukrainian regions of Odesa and Mykolaiv, which would cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea.
"Unfortunately, they are not speaking about peace. They are preparing for war," said Palisa, who briefed a bipartisan group of senators on June 5. He is part of a delegation led by Zelenskyy's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak.
As Politico notes, it is unclear whether Russia will be able to achieve these goals. Moscow is making slow progress on the battlefield, but is having difficulty achieving the large territorial gains seen at the beginning of the war.
Assessment of Moscow's plans
Military analysts predict that Russia will increase the pace of its summer offensive to increase pressure on Ukraine, but note that Moscow may have difficulty maintaining the pace through 2026. Russia shows no intention of ending the war anytime soon.
Western officials have repeatedly said that they have seen no indication in their intelligence that Putin has backed down from his two main goals in this war: to permanently tie Ukraine to Russia and to strike a grand bargain with the West that will redefine the post-Cold War security architecture in Europe.
This is what Russian officials mean when they talk about addressing the root causes of the conflict.
"The Russians want a deal. But they don’t see the deal as primarily between them and the Ukrainians," said George Beebe, former director of Russia analysis at the CIA.
“They think this is a long-running geopolitical tug of war between Moscow and Washington,” he said at a briefing organized by the Center for the National Interest.
Russia outlined its demands for an end to the war in a memorandum presented on June 2 during talks with Ukraine in Istanbul. They include demands for international recognition of the occupation of Crimea, as well as four Ukrainian regions partially seized by Moscow.
The document calls for Ukraine to permanently abandon its ambitions to join NATO and to limit the size of its armed forces - something that officials in Kyiv have called a red line.
Sources in Western countries have reported on Russia's plans to continue the offensive in the summer of 2025. In particular, a US official told CNN that the likely offensive would be aimed at gaining more territory in eastern Ukraine. Putin will try to take any land he can get, up to the outskirts of Kyiv, the American official said. According to him, the Russians will make every effort to get what they can.
