Why Russia is stepping up attacks on Ukraine – DW – 07/12/2025

DW

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Kyiv has recently suffered the most intense bombing it has seen since Russia began its full-scale invasion three years ago. What does Vladimir Putin hope to achieve — and how can the destruction be stopped?
On Friday morning, Russia carried out another drone attack on Odessa. The Ukrainian army's territorial recruitment center and residential buildings were hit, local media reported.
A day earlier, at least two people were killed in a massive overnight attack that targeted several districts in the capital Kyiv. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said an ambulance station was destroyed.
The damage is part of a series of sweeping combined attacks that included what Ukrainian media called a "night from hell" in Kyiv on July 4, when the Russian army deployed more than 500 drones, in addition to Kinzhal and Iskander missiles.
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As a result, even US President Donald Trump, who had previously seen himself as a mediator in the conflict, declared that he was disappointed with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin," Trump said. "He's very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless."
Shortly after these remarks, the US resumed deliveries of artillery shells and mobile rocket artillery missiles to Ukraine, news agency Reuters reported.
Thanks to the expansion of its drone production, Russia is now in a position to carry out this level of attacks. It is no longer dependent on Iran as it was back in 2022.
They're currently producing thousands a month," military technology expert David Hambling told DW. "That might make it up to tens of thousands, and that's simply enough to swamp most forms of defense that would take out missiles."
Still, Colonel Markus Reisner from the Austrian Armed Forces told DW that Russia would not have the capacity carry out such attacks without the help of other countries. China supplies drone parts and North Korea delivers ballistic missiles, he added. "You can see that Russia is relying on supporters here," he said.
Following the recent attack on Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told news portal NV that the intensified shelling was a result of Putin's wish for "people to suffer and flee Ukraine, to see houses, schools — life itself — destroyed everywhere, not just on the front line."
The , citing sources close to the Kremlin, reported that this is how Russia intends to break Ukraine's defenses in the coming months.
Colonel Reisner said that Putin has two strategic aims with his latest combined attacks: to destroy Ukraine's military-industrial complex and to influence the Ukrainian public.
"Targeted attacks on the population, which is intended to be further weakened by terror, are thus an indirect attempt to exert pressure on the Ukrainian government," Reisner said.
Many military experts like German political scientist Andreas Heinemann-Grüder expect Russia to launch a new offensive this summer. He sees the increasing number of combined attacks as part of this campaign.
Russia's goal is to incapacitate Ukrainian air defenses to such an extent that the losses cannot be offset by supplies from Western countries, he said. The attacks could also signal that Russia is preparing for a "decisive battle," he added, saying that he could not rule out the possibility that Russia could corner Ukraine into subordinating to the Kremlin's demands by around year's end.
The experts who spoke to DW all said that more decisive action from the West would be necessary to reclaim control on the battlefield. At the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome this week Zelenskyy also said that while Ukraine had found a solution to fend off Russian attacks in interceptor drones, his country's defense sector remains in urgent need of investment.
Ukraine is now achieving good results in the production of its own drones, but still cannot do without support, Colonel Reisner said. "It needs support from the West, especially for special weapons systems, such as the Patriot anti-aircraft missiles," he said.
This week, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that Germany was prepared to buy Patriot systems from the US for Ukraine.
To provide truly effective aid, the West must overcome fears that the weapons supplied to Ukraine could fall into Russian hands, political scientist Heinemann-Grüder said. Were that to happen, Western arms companies would worry about losing their technological edge, he explained. Another concern is that establishing joint ventures with Ukraine could drive down prices for their products.
"These kinds of thoughts need to be overcome," Heinemann-Grüder said.