The largest advance of Russian forces in Ukraine since July 2022 is recorded by authoritative international observers, noting with emphasis that the suspension of American aid for a period of at least five months is very likely to prove decisive for the outcome of the war in the region.

At the same time that Kiev desperately awaits weapons systems and munitions from the US, Russian forces are pushing ever deeper into Ukrainian territory, controlling strategic territory and causing critical cracks in Ukrainian defenses.

Russian forces have used an “artillery drought” in Ukraine’s defenses since December to push forward on the eastern front near Avdiivka, marking the biggest advance since the first months of the war.

The significant advance of Russian forces into the Ukrainian hinterland has prompted dire warnings from senior Ukrainian military officials of a potential threat to Kiev’s supply lines and hubs in the east, which are now dangerously close to its range – anyway -superior Russian firepower.

Characteristic are the maps showing the progress in the advance of Russian forces on Ukrainian lands:

All this is happening while the information about an escalation of the Russian attack, at the end of May, is intensifying. According to experts’ estimates, Ukraine’s control over the Donetsk region will be immediately threatened.

Russia has focused on three main fronts:

1) the vital military center of Pokrovsk, west of Avdiivka

2) the strategic heights of Chasiv Yar, near Bakhmut and

3) Kurakhove in the southeast.

On February 17, Ukraine announced it had pulled out of Avdiivka, a city it has been fighting for a decade, a city Russia appears to have sacrificed hundreds of troops to take over. However, Moscow’s advance did not stop there. Over the next 10 weeks, as shown on the CNN map and confirmed by analysis by the Ukrainian monitoring group DeepStateMap, Russian forces took one area after another west of Avdiivka, taking advantage of Kiev’s failure to defend itself.