Putin planning summer of "relentless" attacks on Ukraine – WSJ

The US decision to halt arms supplies to Ukraine has spurred russian dictator vladimir putin to scale up his attacks. Ukraine is set to face a summer of "brutal" and "relentless" attacks, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, July 4.

The publication writes that while US President Donald Trump is pulling back in Ukraine, putin is "pushing forward." Russia is currently ramping up its bombing of Ukraine, while attacks on the front are intensifying. The halt in US arms supplies has given the russian dictator a significant boost and given reason to believe that the West is weakening support for Ukraine.

"In a phone call with Trump on Thursday, Putin made it clear that he had no intention of heeding the US President's calls to end the war. Instead, he reiterated that his goals remained the same as during the invasion: to restore Russian dominance over Ukraine and force the West to abandon its support for Kyiv," the article says.

Putin's adviser Yuri Ushakov confirmed that russia was not going to back down from its goals and would continue its military efforts. The publication recalls that just a few hours after Trump and Putin's conversation, Kyiv came under one of the most massive attacks by the aggressor.

Analysts believe that putin's strategy now is to increase pressure on the military and civilians in order to break Ukraine's will to resist. And this is happening against the backdrop of increased shelling and the cessation of American aid.

In such a situation, Ukraine has faced continuous attacks from russia, and Trump's efforts to establish peace have reached a dead end, the WSJ noted. Although putin has apparently expressed his willingness to negotiate, no possible dates have been mentioned.

At the same time, russia is increasingly confident that it can exhaust Ukraine and its allies. However, according to some analysts, at this stage of the war, even the seizure of territories may not be the goal of the russian federation. Instead, putin wants to "grind" the equipment and weaken the Ukrainian troops and undermine support and unity both within Ukraine and among its supporters.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, on July 2, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a comment to NBC News that the United States had decided to stop supplying some weapons to Ukraine.

On July 3, putin's aide Yuri Ushakov said that moscow allegedly wants to end the war in Ukraine through negotiations, but will not back down from its original goals.

On July 4, Trump said that a phone conversation with putin did not lead to any progress in efforts to end the war in Ukraine.