Russia is not making any serious advances on the front lines at the moment. The situation is difficult for Ukrainian defenders, but it is also difficult for Russians, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at a meeting with journalists on 24 July.
He believes that only Russia’s leadership wants to fight. They are stepping up mobilisation and increasing pressure.
“They are really trying to make a breakthrough. They have no serious breakthroughs. They understand that they will get beaten. And so they are conducting more military information operations. Like the situation with Pokrovsk. How many times has the DRG come in? I am talking to the military, now with Syrskyy. He says, during this time, 5–7 times. Two people, six people. There was one time when they tried to secure 12 people. They try to shoot some video: put up a flag, film it… and all of them are destroyed by our defenders,” he said.
In the Sumy direction, according to him, the situation is “much better” than before.
“There is pressure from the Russians everywhere. Pokrovsk, Kharkiv, and Kupyansk. Our guys are holding their ground. Well done. For them, conditional success is the Dnipropetrovsk Region. Because they can use this to score informational victories. The situation there is the same as in Pokrovsk. They go in – there is a field. It doesn’t matter whether they entered there or not. There is simply no living space on this field. No one is standing there. People are just standing at a distance and destroying everything they can. I believe that for now, Sumy remains of interest to them, the Pokrovsk direction remains, and the Dnipropetrovsk Region is ‘very desirable’,” Zelenskyy said.