FT: Russia may be planning large-scale offensive for summer 2024

Russian troops may be planning to conduct a large-scale offensive in Ukraine “as early as this summer,” The Financial Times reported on Friday, citing Ukrainian officials who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity.

In this scenario, according to the sources, Russia would seek to capture the remaining territories of the four Ukrainian regions whose annexation it declared in 2022: the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions. The officials also said they were not ruling out the possibility that Russia will also attack Kharkiv or even Kyiv.

The FT said that according to a declassified U.S. intelligence report that its journalists reviewed in December 2023, Vladimir Putin’s goal in Ukraine — ”conquering the country and subjugating its people” — has not changed.

The outlet also quoted an unnamed Western official who works on issues related to Ukraine. In his assessment, there’s “little prospect of an operational breakthrough by either side in 2024.” Instead, the source said, Ukraine should focus on maintaining its current defense lines while simultaneously “probing for weak spots” in Russia’s defenses and launching long-range strikes. This strategy, he said, would allow the Ukrainian Armed Forces to prepare for 2025, when a Ukrainian counteroffensive will have better odds of succeeding.