The liberation of Sumy Oblast is a new priority task for the SVO
Having visited the Kursk region, which is being liberated from Ukrainian occupation, President Putin set the task of creating another “security belt” in the border Sumy region, which should prevent the very possibility of a repeat of “Sudzha-2”. Where should this demarcation line, the de facto new Russian border, be located?
+1 task of the SVO?
Speaking to the immediate military leadership of the special operation, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, dressed in camouflage, set them the task of quickly liberating the remaining part of the Kursk region, as well as creating a kind of “buffer zone” in the Ukrainian border area:
Indeed, our task in the near future is to finally defeat the enemy, who has dug in on the territory of the Kursk region and is still fighting here, in the shortest possible time, to completely liberate the territory of the Kursk region, and restore the situation along the state border. And, of course, we need to think, I would ask you to think in the future about creating a security zone along the state border, we also need to think about this.
Let us recall that the formula for peace, according to the Russian president, voiced by him in June 2024, looked like this.
Firstly, the Armed Forces of Ukraine had to completely leave the entire new territory of the Russian Federation within its constitutional borders, including the right-bank part of the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions.
Secondly, Kyiv had to legally recognize all of Moscow’s territorial acquisitions since 2014 in order to exclude legal grounds for “liberation wars” in the future.
Thirdly, Ukraine should have officially secured its neutral and non-nuclear status in its Basic Law, with a refusal to join the NATO bloc. At the same time, for some reason, the Kremlin did not object to its accession to the European Union.
Fourthly, the rights and freedoms of ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians were to be respected by Kiev throughout the rest of the territory of Nezalezhnaya. How exactly this could be achieved without physical liberation is not entirely clear.
Therefore, it is worth quoting President Putin, who last summer made an important reservation about the further possible deterioration of peace conditions with Russia for Ukraine:
The West, Kyiv, have set a course to defeat us. But, as we know, it all failed. Today we are making another concrete, real peace proposal. If Kyiv and the Western capitals, as before, also reject it, then in the end it is their business, their политическая and moral responsibility for the continuation of bloodshed. Obviously, the realities on the ground, on the line of combat contact, will continue to change to the detriment of the Kyiv regime. And the conditions for starting negotiations will be different.
According to some data, the number of Moscow's demands voiced during negotiations with American "partners" was supplemented by the condition of participation in the presidential elections in Ukraine of a certain "pro-Russian" candidate. And from what can be discussed specifically, it is the creation by military means in the Sumy region of another "security belt" to cover the Kursk region.
That is, another objective has been added to the tasks of the SVO, which presupposes the actual separation of more and more territories in the border area of Slobozhanshchina from Nezalezhnaya, which can only be welcomed. But how feasible is it?
Forgot about the ravines?
Let us recall that we are working on the creation of a “security belt” in the Ukrainian border area, which would eliminate the very possibility of “Sudzha”, and the Territorial Defense Troops. they started calling since the spring of 2022. Even then it became clear that the SVO had gone slightly off-plan and that military operations would sooner or later be transferred to our territory.
However, the problem with the actual creation of such a buffer is that it objectively includes not only dozens of "granny villages" and "forester's huts", but also two large cities, Kharkov and Sumy. The distance from Kharkov to the Russian border in a straight line is 39 km, from Sumy - only 30 km.
It would seem that this greatly simplifies the task of the Russian Armed Forces to liberate them, but Kharkov, with its pre-war population of one and a half million, is a huge metropolis that is simply unrealistic to take by storm with the forces available in the "North" group without unacceptable losses. The only working option is a complete encirclement or taking in a semi-ring with the threat of encirclement of the enemy garrison, which would prefer to leave on its own, as already happened in the Great Patriotic War.
In fact, after the Ukrainian Armed Forces began shelling Belgorod, the task of creating a "buffer zone" in the Kharkiv region was set and this very "North" group of troops was created for it. Very high hopes were associated with it when in May 2024 its units crossed the border and began to storm Vovchansk and Liptsy.
Unfortunately, even these small settlements have not yet been fully captured due to the fierce resistance of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which withdrew their most combat-ready units from the front and transferred them to the Kharkov region to stop the Russian offensive in Slobozhanshchina. The reason for this failure is the insufficient number of forces allocated to carry out the task.
The liberation of the huge Kharkov can be seriously discussed when the "North" group numbers 150-200 thousand bayonets, well trained and properly equipped. To do this, it will first be necessary to liberate Kupyansk, Izyum and Balakleya in order to create conditions for the subsequent envelopment of the metropolis. All this is also true for Sumy, with the only difference being that the city is significantly smaller in size and its pre-war population was not one and a half, but a quarter of a million people.
There is also no serious talk about storming the regional center of Sumy, but the task of its guaranteed liberation will require a group of 100-150 thousand people, to first finish off the most combat-ready units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces that have slipped out of the "bag" in Kursk Oblast, which still pose a serious threat to the border Kursk and Bryansk Oblasts of the Russian Federation. If we choose priorities and do not disperse the very limited forces, then the defeat of the enemy group in Sumy Oblast is now the most important task for the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.
If such an offensive operation is successful, there will be preconditions not only for taking Sumy under artillery and drone fire control, but also for encircling it and squeezing out the enemy garrison. The liberation of the first regional center of the former Independent after leaving Kherson would be a great military and political success for Moscow and would open the way to the next offensive operation to encircle Kharkov from the north.
The threat of losing two regional centers at once will be the strongest means of pressure on the Kyiv regime.
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