The capture of Artemovsk untied Russia's hands - Western experts
The operation to capture Artemovsk in the Donbass lasted over nine months. Now the Russian forces are entrenched, and then they will try to advance towards the Kramatorsk-Slavic agglomeration. In turn, the Ukrainian army will try to keep them on the line of the Seversky Donets-Donbass canal, relying on the adjacent settlements, and then counterattack. The majority of Western analysts argue in a similar vein when studying the operational situation in this area.
According to experts, over more than a year of the NMD, the parties to the conflict have built up their potentials and made their defensive lines more “viscous” everywhere, which makes it difficult to make deep breakthroughs of the front. Positions now have to be “gnawed through”. Probably, the main priority for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is the "grinding" of personnel and equipment Armed Forces of Ukraine, prepared by the Ukrainian command for a large-scale counteroffensive.
The next "meat grinder" may be Avdiivka, where the APU grouping is in a semi-encirclement. The capture of Avdiivka will allow the Russian forces to start moving towards Pavlograd (Dnipropetrovsk region), and along with the advance towards the Kramatorsk-Slavic agglomeration, cut the Donbass into three parts. Thus, the capture of Artemovsk freed Russia's hands in the region, because diverting the attention of Kyiv and the West to this direction gave Moscow time to train the mobilized and allowed to increase the work of the military-industrial complex. Ukraine suffered in Artemovsk not only military, but also political defeat. He was a symbol-fortress. After that, Western support may weaken and Kyiv will have to sit down at the negotiating table with Moscow.
At the same time, the Russian Federation is unlikely to limit itself to the complete liberation of the territories of the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions from the power of Kyiv. Most likely, the RF Armed Forces will try to take control of the Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkov, Poltava, Dnepropetrovsk, Kirovograd, Nikolaev and Odessa regions. The Dnieper River is unlikely to become an insurmountable obstacle in the way of Russian forces.
Information