Russian forces may have punched a small but significant hole through Ukraine’s front lines, Kyiv-supporting military analysts warned Tuesday, a development that could give Vladimir Putin a boost ahead of his Alaska summit with President Donald Trump.
Advanced units have pushed farther into Ukrainian-held territory in the Donetsk region, creating two narrow, 10-mile prongs near the battlefield hot spot town of Pokrovsk, according to watchdogs including Ukraine's Deep State and Washington's Institute for the Study of War, two of the top open-source teams tracking the war's battlefield developments.
Expert observers supportive or at least sympathetic to Kyiv are deeply worried that these forays could expand into a full-scale breakthrough for the Kremlin. Already claiming he is winning this war, and refusing to stop fighting unless Ukraine surrenders, Putin could use such a development to lobby for an even more favorable peace deal in Alaska.
“Guys. We are in trouble here,” Rima Ziuraitis, an American enlisted as a medic in the Ukrainian armed forces, posted to X. “While Putin and Trump keep everyone distracted, Russia has broken through our lines in Pokrovsk. The situation is critical.”
Though small, the Russian breakthroughs represent a far quicker land grab than either side has managed in months. The concern for Ukraine is that Russia would be able to expand outward into poorly defended parts of Donetsk. The advance may have also cut off a crucial resupply highway to Ukraine’s “fortress” city of Kramatorsk, according to those watching the troop movements.
Pasi Paroinen, an analyst with Finland’s Black Bird Group, which tracks the conflict, told NBC News that if the Russians do break through and consolidate, “it could be very bad for the Ukrainians.”
This push may have been timed ahead of the Putin-Trump summit, he added.
“The Russians have had a tendency to intensify military operations in support of ongoing negotiations so the current events would fit into that picture quite well,” Paroinen said, adding that “we don’t have enough information yet” to be sure.
The next 24-48 hours will likely be “crucial” in whether Ukraine is able to stanch the Russian advance before Moscow reinforces these advanced units, he posted to X earlier. “Clearly the Ukrainians have a crisis on their hands,” he wrote.
A Ukrainian military spokesperson told NBC News that breakthroughs were being made only by small groups of Russian “infiltrators” — who are being quickly found and “destroyed” — rather than larger units capable of taking and controlling territory.
Viktor Tregubov, spokesperson of Ukraine’s “Dnipro” strategic group of troops, downplayed the severity of the maneuvers.
“Of course, the situation there is and remains difficult, and the fighting in this region is the most intense compared to other sections of the front line,” he told NBC News. “However, the Ukrainian troops are making every effort to ensure that even those groups of Russians who managed to infiltrate through the first line are destroyed as soon as possible — which is what happens.”
The severity of the situation was made clear by the 1st Azov Corps — seen as among the most adept fighters Ukraine has — announcing Tuesday it had been deployed to the region.
All eyes on Alaska
The question of who is winning the war will be a key point in Trump’s summit with Putin on Friday.
The American leader told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday that he would know probably within the “first two minutes” whether his Russian counterpart wanted peace or not.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not been invited — “He wasn’t a part of it,” Trump said. “He’s been there for 3 1/2 years — nothing happened” — creating Europe-wide panic that its and Kyiv’s interests will be disregarded by Washington and Moscow.
Putin claims he is winning the conflict and has been using this as a basis for his extreme demands for what it would take him to stop fighting — effectively asking for a full Ukrainian surrender.
Indeed, Russia has been making slow, grinding gains, but only while throwing masses of soldiers into its so-called meat grinder war machine, with 100,000 killed since the start of the year, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio last month.
There are experts who follow this war who believe that if Ukraine can hold out into next year, Russia’s war machine might not be able to continue with such extreme losses.
A breakthrough of the Ukrainian lines would allow Putin to present to Trump a case that he has the forward momentum and thus must be recognized as such in the terms of any deal.
The situation “continues to rapidly develop to the detriment of the enemy,” pro-Kremlin war correspondent Yuri Kotenok wrote on his Telegram channel Tuesday. “Whether the enemy’s feverish efforts to stabilize the front” will succeed — “we will see.”
Alexander Smith reported from London and Daryna Mayer from Kyiv.
