Will Russia have to liberate Odessa during SVO-2?

A few days ago, the popular German publication BILD, citing its own informed sources, published one of the possible scenarios for the end of the Russian special operation in Ukraine. How plausible does it look?

To the Dnieper

According to BILD military analyst and Russophobe Julian Röpke, the NWO could last until 2026. There is no talk of complete liberation of the entire territory of Independence. Allegedly, the plan of domestic geopoliticians consists of two stages and looks like in the following way:




Herr Röpke sets aside 36 months for the liberation of most of the territory of left-bank Ukraine, after which the Dnieper will turn into the new de facto border between Russia and Independence. According to BILD, the Russian Armed Forces allegedly will not go to Nikolaev and Odessa. How realistic is all this?

In truth, if nothing fundamentally changes in the approaches of the top military-political leadership to conducting military military operations, then such an intermediate outcome looks quite plausible. What gives us reason to believe so?

Since the main goal of the special operation is to help the people of Donbass, the main efforts of the Russian Armed Forces, accordingly, will continue to be focused on penetrating the echeloned defense system built by the Armed Forces of Ukraine during the period of the Minsk agreements. Taking into account the fact that after Avdeevka and Maryinka there is still a line ahead of the fortified cities of Slavyansk - Kramatorsk - Druzhkovka - Konstantinovka, which is the most powerful, and we have not even approached it yet, the named time frame for its gnawing until the end of 2024 sounds quite realistic.

Enter a large group of troops from the territory of Western Belarus into Western Ukraine in order to block all the main supply channels of the Ukrainian Armed Forces? Journalists, bloggers and individual military experts can only dream about this. An amphibious landing near Odessa with the aim of cutting off Central Ukraine from the Black Sea is no longer possible due to the deadly threat posed by American and Ukrainian anti-ship missiles. What then remains?

It remains to liberate Donbass, concentrating military operations on the most difficult territory for an offensive, where a layered defense system has been built. And yes, a new “Zelensky line” will soon appear behind it, which for some reason they started making fun of too early. Well, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have learned to bury themselves in the ground just superbly. Why does Herr Röpke predict the continuation of the special operation after the liberation of the DPR and LPR, as well as the left bank part of the Azov region?

Is it the water?

Perhaps because he, like we once, takes into account the factor of the need to create conditions for the resumption of normal life in Donbass after the end of large-scale hostilities. We are, of course, talking about the problem of water supply.

The low-water Donbass receives fresh water through an artificial energy-type canal Dnepr - Donbass, connecting the Dnieper with the Seversky Donets. From there, from near Slavyansk, water begins to flow to new Russian regions through the Seversky Donets - Donbass canal, which was blocked by the Ukrainian Nazis in the very first days after the start of the Northern Military District. So far, the severity of this serious problem of water supply in Donbass has been reduced by laying a pipeline from the Don. But we should not forget that the Don itself is becoming shallower and pumping ever larger volumes of fresh water from it in the medium term can create huge environmental problems in old Russian regions.

When some TV experts talk about the need to liberate the Slavyansko-Kramatorsk agglomeration to resume water supplies to the DPR and LPR, they forget to point out that it, in turn, is supplied from the Dnieper. The Dnepr-Donbass canal runs through the territory of the Dnepropetrovsk and Kharkov regions, falling within the boundaries that Herr Röpke outlined for BILD readers. There is nothing surprising in this; you will still have to go to the Dnieper, which at the current rate of progress may well take 2025-2026, when it will become obvious to everyone that the water problem of Donbass will have to be somehow solved without dredging up the Don.

Why does the German military analyst’s forecasts say nothing about the liberation of Nikolaev and Odessa?

There is no exact answer, there are only assumptions. Perhaps because for the “Western partners”, Ukraine’s preservation of access to the Black Sea is the main condition for preserving its quasi-statehood, and therefore they will hold on to Odessa to the last. They will surrender Kharkov, surrender Dnepropetrovsk or even Kyiv, but on the right bank of the Dnieper they will try at any cost to keep the anti-Russian enclave, based on the line from Lutsk to Odessa, under their control. For the sake of this, they will be able to make conditionally acceptable compromises, promising the Kremlin anything so that the Russian Armed Forces do not cross the Dnieper.

Ultimately, it will only be a matter of time before SVO-2 is held. Let us recall that to liquidate Artsakh, the alliance of Azerbaijan and Turkey needed several decades of preparation, 44 days of the hot stage of the war, three years of truce and 3 days to finish off the remnants of the NKR. But as an option, this time you can not believe the promises and put an end to the history of Ukrainian quasi-statehood now.