Russian forces have made a tactical breakthrough in the front lines in a push that is likely designed to boost Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hand ahead of his meeting with President Donald Trump later this week.

The Russians’ moves toward the Ukrainian city of Dobropilla are “small-scale penetrations” for now, but they “certainly will seek to try to mature these tactical successes into a larger breakthrough and a larger penetration and seize more territory,” George Barros, an expert with the Institute for the Study of War, told the Washington Examiner.

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While the Russian advances are small for now, Barros said the next couple of days and weeks will be consequential.

Trump and Putin are set to meet in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday in what will be the Russian leader’s first trip to the United States since 2015. Their meeting came at the request of the Kremlin, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

Putin has not met face to face with a U.S. president since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He met with then-President Joe Biden in Geneva in June 2021, their only in-person interaction during Biden’s presidency.

“It’s very interesting that the Russians chose this moment to do this push, to achieve this informational effect, and show the maps what’s happening because Putin wants to go into the summit on Friday and have the international headlines be that this meeting is happening on the backstage of Russian battlefield breakthroughs,” Barros added.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky believes the Russian army is not “preparing to end the war. On the contrary, they are making movements that indicate preparations for new offensive operations.”

Trump’s goal with this meeting is “to walk away with a better understanding of how we can end this war,” Leavitt said on Tuesday.

Zelensky was not invited to join Trump and Putin’s meeting, though the U.S. leader said he intends to call European leaders, Zelensky included, shortly afterward. Trump also said his meeting with Putin would be followed by a meeting between Putin and Zelensky and that he would be willing to join them.

Trump has discussed the possibility of land swaps for both sides as part of an agreement to end the war, including the possibility of Russian forces leaving occupied Ukrainian territory, though he has refrained from discussing specifics.

“I am grateful to the leaders of Europe for their clear support of our independence, territorial integrity, and precisely such an active approach to diplomacy that can help end this war with a dignified peace,” Zelensky said on social media on Tuesday. “Indeed, we all support President Trump’s determination, and together we must shape positions that will not allow Russia to deceive the world once again.”

The war in Ukraine, which has raged for about three and a half years, has largely become a war of attrition in which the front lines have remained mostly unchanged for years. Russia has been unable to accomplish its initial goal of toppling the Ukrainian government — experts say that goal is unattainable — but Russia adjusted from those goals early into the war. It has lost hundreds of thousands of service members to make minimal advances on the battlefield.

Russia has unilaterally annexed four territories in Ukraine: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. The Russians carried out referendums they claimed showed those areas voted to join the Russian Federation, but almost no country has recognized those as legitimate.

Russian officials have said they want the U.S. and West to recognize that land as Russian territory as part of a deal, even though it includes territory that Russian troops do not currently occupy, a recognition the Ukrainians have strongly refused.

Russian and Ukrainian troops have been fighting in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, which is primarily made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, since 2014. Russia has still been unable to capture the entire region, but it is looking to do so in the negotiations.

Putin “wants Ukraine to give it up to him without having to fight for it,” retired four-star Army Gen. Jack Keane said on Fox News, referencing what’s known as Ukraine’s “fortress belt,” a group of four fortified large cities and smaller towns that run north to south in the Donetsk oblast.

Ukraine has spent more than a decade reinforcing these areas to prevent annexation.

Russia has “about 65% to 70% of the Donbas oblasts, and what [Putin] wants to take charge of is this ‘fortress belt’ we refer to. It’s about 15 miles going north to south, five cities along there that have all been fortified. This is in the Donetsk oblast, and he’s been trying to take it since 2014 when he failed then, and for the last two years, he failed to take it,” Keane said.

RUSSIA BREAKS THROUGH MAIN UKRAINIAN DEFENSE LINE AHEAD OF ALASKA MEETING WITH TRUMP

“What makes this important? Because the terrain beyond that to the north is all farmland, not very defensible, and it’s on a pathway right to Kharkiv, which is the second largest city in Ukraine,” he added.

The Kremlin’s attempt to strengthen its positions right before an expected meeting is a tactic it has used before, Barros noted, citing the Minsk talks in 2014 and 2015.