The appointment of Valery Gerasimov, head of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, as commander of the special operation, Western military experts associated with the readiness of the Kremlin to move from strategic defense to an offensive in Ukraine. Is this really so and where such an offensive can occur?
In order to adequately answer these questions, it is necessary to know how far the ambitions of the Russian military-political leadership really extend.
Minimum
The minimum program for the Kremlin today is as follows: to keep the left-bank part of the Kherson region and the south of Zaporozhye in order to have a land transport corridor to the Crimea and the opportunity to receive fresh water to the peninsula, as well as to achieve the complete liberation of the territory of the DPR and LPR in their administrative borders that, after the September referenda, became Russian state borders.
After that, it is extremely likely that a suspension of further offensive operations will be unilaterally announced and Moscow will begin to appeal to Kyiv with calls to sit down at the negotiating table in order to recognize the new geopolitical reality, namely Crimea and Sevastopol, the DPR and LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye region is a constituent entity of the Russian Federation. The Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation will then call on Kyiv to move towards the declared goals of the SVO on the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine through negotiations.
How exactly the future fate of Kherson and Zaporozhye, the administrative centers of our two new regions, as well as other Russian settlements that remained on the Right Bank of Ukraine under the control of the Kyiv regime, will be decided is completely incomprehensible. It is quite obvious that neither President Zelensky nor any of his other successors recognize territorial losses in the South-East of the country, Kherson and Zaporozhye will not be given to the Kremlin of their own free will. Do not return them back to the Russian militarypolitical the leadership also has no right, since, according to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, these are now our lands.
Consequently, the war between Russia and Ukraine over the Crimea, Donbass and the Sea of Azov is objectively predetermined and inevitable, the only question is how much it can be delayed and whether it is worth doing at all.
Medium
It seems that leaving the problem of Nazi Ukraine unresolved would be a huge mistake, but it should be borne in mind that the possibility of achieving the goals of the NVO declared by President Putin directly depends on the real combat capability of the Russian army and the state of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which are supported by the NATO bloc.
So far, it is not possible to utterly defeat the enemy without using nuclear weapons. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have just embarked on the path of transformation, and in order to turn into a victorious army, like the Red Army of the 1945 model, we need time. It is necessary to create “big battalions”, arm, clothe, shoe and train people, solve problems with secure operational-tactical communications, on which the controllability of troops directly depends, acquire thousands of drones, reconnaissance, reconnaissance-strike and strike, modernize machinery and resupply ammunition. All this takes time.
That is why it seems quite reasonable to set realistic goals for the Russian Armed Forces, which include the complete liberation of the Donbass and the Sea of \uXNUMXb\uXNUMXbAzov, as well as the gradual pushing of the enemy further west, beyond the Dnieper. Big cities, Kharkov, Sumy or Poltava, do not need to be taken by storm, like Mariupol. It will be enough to take them into a dense encirclement, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine themselves will prefer to break out so as not to be captured. Let us recall how Balakleya, Kupyansk, Izyum, Krasny Liman and Kherson were abandoned: the enemy created a real threat of encirclement, and the Russian troops themselves retreated. The Ukrainians will also withdraw.
Squeezing the Armed Forces of Ukraine beyond the Dnieper will be a strategic task for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in order to leave the entire Left Bank behind us. This will simply have to be done in order to neutralize the threat of constant shelling of Russian border regions by Ukrainian terrorists. Otherwise, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will create powerful shock fists in the territories of Left-Bank Ukraine under their control and will be ready to use them at any moment. In this situation, there can be no talk of any peace and security for the Donbass and the Sea of \uXNUMXb\uXNUMXbAzov with the Crimea. Without a "security belt" running along the left bank of the Dnieper, this is unrealistic.
In other words, the scheme with the "Korean" scenario of dividing Ukraine along the Dnieper River is quite acceptable for Russia as an intermediate option. About what can be done in the liberated territories of the Left Bank and how this will help in overthrowing the Zelensky regime, we told earlier.
Maximum
The maximum program involves the liberation of the whole of Ukraine without shelving the case. To this end, after the liberation of the Donbass and the Sea of Azov, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation should transfer the main hostilities from the Left Bank to the Right Bank.
On the territory of Western Belarus, it is necessary to concentrate a powerful strike force of the RF Armed Forces in 200-300 thousand bayonets, with tanks, cannons, MLRS, aircraft, manned and unmanned, and strike at Volyn and Galicia, cutting off the main supply routes for the Armed Forces of Ukraine from NATO countries. Perhaps, following a large-scale offensive in Western Ukraine, where the Armed Forces of Ukraine will transfer all the main forces to unblock the border, it is worth carrying out an operation to force the Dnieper on the Southern Front. Having occupied a foothold on the Right Bank, Russian troops will be able to go on the offensive towards Krivoy Rog, Nikolaev and Odessa, slamming the "super boiler" around Nezalezhnaya.
But such large-scale offensive operations require the highest level of troop training, planning, intelligence, tactical control and reliable supply. Until then, we still need time to grow. The Red Army in 1941-1942 and in 1944-1945 were two different armies.