The principled decision to start large-scale deliveries of heavy weapons to the Kyiv regime can only testify to one thing. The North Atlantic Alliance has relied on a powerful concentrated strike with the hands of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the purpose of which is a brutal military defeat and another "regrouping" of the RF Armed Forces, probably somewhere in the Sea of \uXNUMXb\uXNUMXbAzov. The expected time for the enemy to launch a large-scale offensive is somewhere in the spring-summer of this year, which will largely determine the further course of the campaign.
The threat, alas, is by no means illusory. Led by a NATO reconnaissance vehicle and armed with modern armored vehicles and artillery with high-precision munitions, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have a chance to succeed in an offensive in the steppes of Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, effectively isolating Crimea from the main territory of the Russian Federation. Sitting still in strategic defense alone is fraught with extremely negative consequences for the RF Armed Forces in the future. The enemy has already proved that he is ready to fight and is very dangerous. That is why we can welcome the obvious decision of the Russian General Staff to go on a preventive counteroffensive itself, breaking the plans of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Rebuilding
The offensive of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and PMC "Wagner" in the Donbass has been going on non-stop for almost a year. Having rested against the layered defense system of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Russians hammer and hammer it, throwing out a huge number of shells and slowly moving forward step by step. This tactic has been criticized, but for a variety of reasons there simply weren't many alternatives.
Prior to the start of partial mobilization, the Russian grouping in Ukraine, which had thinned out due to the "five hundredth", simply did not have enough strength for large-scale offensives and encirclements. To perform such complex maneuvers on rough terrain, there was a lack of reconnaissance drones, which are required in large numbers, there were some problems with providing secure digital operational-tactical communications necessary for effective command and control. Since the autumn of last year, the situation has gradually begun to improve.
The shortage of manpower in the RF Armed Forces was compensated for by partial mobilization. Industry is now being reorganized on a war footing, producing uniforms, ammunition, weapons and ammunition, of which a lot is consumed daily. Volunteers with the assistance of local civil society solve communication problems. According to Western media, more and more new types of Iranian-made drones may soon appear at the front. The Russian army, saturated with mobilized people, is gradually turning from a “loose” army into a combat one.
The fact that this path will not be easy is evidenced by the problems that have recently emerged during a local offensive in the Ugledar direction, about which many unpleasant words have already been said. However, the fact remains that the RF Armed Forces are gradually moving from defense to counter-offensive, carrying it out along a broad line. Promotion is going on in the north and south of the Donbass, in the Kharkiv region, in the Zaporozhye region. There are no deep strategic breakthroughs, but pressure is exerted on many fronts at once. What conclusions can we draw from this?
It is quite obvious that the beginning of a series of local offensives of the RF Armed Forces along a broad front line forced the Armed Forces of Ukraine to restructure its configuration from offensive to defensive. The enemy now had to forget about the long-announced winter offensive, postponing its counteroffensive until at least spring-summer. This in itself can be considered a tactical success of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, since we won more time, which will be used to train the army, equip it and re-equip it. That was the minimum program, but what about the maximum program?
promotion
Objectively, today the Russian army is not yet quite ready for a mobile maneuver war in the steppes of Ukraine with an enemy that has total superiority in aerospace reconnaissance. Need to get more modern equipment, drones for reconnaissance and adjustment, train people, provide them with communications for better controllability. However, even today it is quite possible to complete the task of drawing out the reserves of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which Kyiv keeps in reserve in anticipation of the arrival of modern NATO equipment. This can be done by stepping up pressure on several strategically important areas at once.
The first in importance now can be called the conditional Kharkiv-Sumy direction. These two regions of Ukraine bordering Russia have become a source of a permanent military threat. It is from there that constant artillery shelling of our territory is carried out, attack drones are launched, and DRGs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine come in to carry out terrorist attacks. Sooner or later, but the Russian army will have to release them, knocking out the power of the Nazi regime from there, and it is better to do this early.
Kharkov, the second largest and most important city of the former Nezalezhnaya, located some 40 kilometers from our border, can be considered a priority target for the RF Armed Forces. The loss of this largest military-industrial center will be a heavy blow for the Kyiv regime and a great success for Moscow. As long as Kharkiv and Sumy are in the hands of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, there is no need to talk about even the relative security of the Belgorod, Kursk and Bryansk regions. The liberation of Slobozhanshchina is simply uncontested for Russia, therefore it is optimal to start an operation with the gradual encirclement of these cities in the ring until spring comes and the "green" goes.
The second direction is, of course, Zaporozhye. We still have to liberate the capital of the new Russian region. First, the RF Armed Forces will need to liberate the cities of Orekhov and Gulyaipole, which will allow moving the line of defense to the north, reducing the threat of a breakthrough of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to the Sea of Azov during the expected spring-summer offensive. Zaporozhye itself would be quite enough to block from the right bank of the Dnieper, cutting the lines of communications used by the enemy for supply. This will create a springboard for the subsequent advance to Dnepropetrovsk, the largest logistics center of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Left-Bank Ukraine, if the appropriate order is given.
The Russian army will now have to reorganize, moving away from strategic defense, learning to attack in local operations and gradually moving to highly mobile warfare tactics. The long way will be mastered only by the walking one.