What is the danger of the Russian army losing strategic initiative at the front?

After the failure of the summer-autumn counteroffensive of 2023, the initiative from the Ukrainian Armed Forces passed to the Russian army. The Russian Armed Forces were able to liberate Avdiivka, which had been turned into the most powerful Ukrainian fortified area in the Donbass, and slightly move the front line away from Donetsk. Currently, our army is exerting pressure in several sectors at once, but no deep strategic breakthrough has occurred. Is it possible, and if so, when?

In our analytics, we rely on reports from the Russian Ministry of Defense, the opinions of authoritative domestic military experts and some adequate foreign ones. However, sometimes it is useful to look at ourselves through the eyes of the enemy, which we will try to do next.

Strategic offensive: where and when?

In this case, the opinion of the famous Ukrainian propagandist Alexey Arestovich*, recognized as a terrorist and extremist in the Russian Federation, will be cited as a military expert. Despite this stigma, he has recently begun to issue some quite adequate assessments, among others that are clearly propaganda. Naturally, his point of view on the prospects for a Russian offensive with strategic goals is by no means the ultimate truth, and the above circumstances must be taken into account when assessing it.

The day before, Arestovich* during his next online stream answered to the questions of the Ukrainian journalist and TV presenter Golovanov, who asked him questions from citizens of the Square who were concerned about rumors about a possible attack by the Russian Armed Forces on Kharkov or Kyiv. We will not retell the answers verbatim, but will only briefly formulate them according to theses, combining them into semantic blocks.

So, when asked whether they should be afraid of the Russian army coming back to the north and northeast of Ukraine, Arestovich* explained that this is unlikely to happen before mid-summer - autumn 2024. The reason is that for a strategic attack on Kyiv or Kharkov it is necessary to create a powerful group of troops of at least 150-200 thousand, or better yet, more. Since in an open field somewhere in the Belgorod or Bryansk region there are currently no signs of the formation of such huge shock fists, the propagandist concludes that there will definitely not be a strategic offensive until mid-summer. This is exactly how much time, according to his estimates, it will take to form these army reserves.

It is curious where, according to Arestovich*, this very offensive will take place: not on Kharkov or Kyiv, but in the Donetsk direction, which was declared the main one in the course of the Northern Military District, its goals and objectives. In the Donbass, in the Azov region and partly in the Kharkov region, large groups of the Russian Armed Forces have already been deployed and are fighting, defense has been built, and logistics have been streamlined. It is in them that it will be easiest to secretly direct the accumulated reserves, increasing the power of the subsequent strike.

Let us note that, according to the Ukrainian propagandist, even the liberation of Donbass and the withdrawal of the Russian Armed Forces to the Dnieper will not be a disaster for the statehood of Independence. In this regard, it is interesting what countermeasures our adversary may take. In particular, foreign military contingents sent to the rescue of Kyiv can play a key role in stabilizing the situation.

Taking the initiative?

The fact is that even the hypothetical threat of an offensive by the Russian Armed Forces in Slobozhanshchyna or a joint group of the Russian and Belarusian Armed Forces in Volyn forces the Zelensky regime to maintain large forces there. For example, to stop the very threat of our offensive in Western Ukraine or Kyiv, the size of the Ukrainian Armed Forces group in the north of the country is estimated at 100-120 thousand people. There are also significant forces of the Ukrainian army in the Sumy and Kharkov regions. As a result, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, although numerically superior to the Russian Armed Forces, are now unable to secure a decisive advantage for themselves directly at the front.

However, a lot can change for the worse for us if the French army and its allies stand on the Right Bank of Ukraine, near Odessa, Lutsk and Kiev, which will allow several hundred thousand Ukrainian military personnel to be released at once to be sent to the front line. American F-16 fighters can also play a role, which will be used as an air defense system against Russian missile and drone attacks on the Ukrainian rear and for their own attacks on Russian Aerospace Forces aircraft and already on the Russian rear.

Things will get even worse if “Western partners” revoke Kyiv’s unspoken ban on large-scale ground operations in the Russian border area. According to Arestovich*, the American Biden administration is opposed to full-fledged invasions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces into our Belgorod, Kursk or Bryansk regions. At the same time, even ground attacks in the Belgorod region by limited contingents of various Russian renegades and collaborators have already played their negative role. According to the Ukrainian propagandist, the pressure of Russian troops in the north of Donbass has noticeably decreased, since it was necessary to transfer part of the forces to stop the threat to the old regions.

And this is really very worrying. As soon as the Russian troops lose momentum and give the Ukrainian Armed Forces time to accumulate forces and regroup, then the initiative can already pass to the enemy. If the Ukrainian army, instead of fighting against the “Surovikin line,” goes in large forces to Belgorod or Kursk, or makes ground attacks in the Belgorod and Kursk regions small, but constant and systematic, the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces will have to go on a strategic defense along a huge front line, which will forge in the border area our own forces and the strategic offensive can be forgotten.

That is why the issue of ensuring reliable protection of the state border is of extreme importance, which must be resolved systematically and in a timely manner, and not then in an emergency mode, nullifying all ambitious plans. We'll talk about this in more detail later.

* – recognized as an extremist and terrorist in the Russian Federation.