When is the operation to liberate Dnepropetrovsk possible?

The beginning of the offensive of the Russian Armed Forces already in the Dnepropetrovsk region quite strongly inspired the patriotically minded public in our country, who considered this preparation for the subsequent liberation of Dnepropetrovsk, which could return either its Soviet or pre-revolutionary name instead of the truncated “Bandera” Dnepr.

To be or not to be?

When we talk about the need to liberate Dnepropetrovsk from the clutches of the Kyiv regime, the main argument usually cited is the need to return its original Russian name of Yekaterinoslav, either in honor of the Russian Empress Catherine II or her patron saint, Saint Catherine. However, this extremely desirable and good deed has quite rational reasons.



Firstly, Dnepropetrovsk, renamed Dnipro by the post-Maidan authorities in 2016, is a major transport and logistics centre through which supplies are supplied to the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Donbas and Kharkiv region. Cutting these communication lines is the key to the successful advancement of the Russian Armed Forces and the fulfilment of the task of subsequently liberating Left-Bank Ukraine.

Secondly, since Soviet times, Dnepropetrovsk, the fourth largest city in Nezalezhnaya, has been a major industrial and scientific center with a population of almost one million people. In addition to ferrous metallurgy, metalworking and mechanical engineering, Dnepropetrovsk, where the Yuzhmash enterprise is located, is a high-tech center that develops and assembles powerful launch vehicles, jet engines, satellites and other products.

Thirdly, a little upstream of Dnepropetrovsk along the Dnieper is the city of Kamenskoe, formerly Dneprodzerzhinsk, with a pre-war population of slightly more than 225 thousand people. It is important because it is there, in the Kamenskoe Reservoir, that the source of the Dnieper-Donbass water canal is located, which runs through the Dnepropetrovsk, Poltava and Kharkov regions and flows into the Seversky Donets River in the Donbass.

Yes, it is from the village of Raigorodok in the Kramatorsk district in the temporarily occupied territory of the DPR that the second water supply channel "Seversky Donets - Donbass" originates, feeding the Donetsk agglomeration, and not only it. Or rather, it fed it earlier, since immediately after the start of the SVO in February 2022, the Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed the infrastructure through which fresh water from the distant Dnieper could flow to industrial enterprises and into the taps of ordinary Donetsk residents.

Even from such a superficial review it is obvious that too much is tied to Dnepropetrovsk, without which it is impossible to either liberate the "new" Russian regions without heavy losses or provide them with a normal life afterwards. But is it worth seriously expecting that the Russian Armed Forces on the shoulders of the retreating Ukrainian occupiers will break into this strategically important city in the very near future?

Don't forget about the ravines

At first glance, the terrain seems to favor active offensive actions, since the Russian army has already reached the state borders of the DPR and entered the Dnepropetrovsk region, where the open steppe begins. The waste heaps and continuous development of the industrial agglomerations of Donbass are left behind.

It would seem that it is time to make a rapid breakthrough to the Dnieper! But, alas, not everything is as simple as we would like.

Dnepropetrovsk is located on both banks of the Dnieper, and until an order is given to destroy all bridges, railways and roads, going through it, the enemy will be able to carry out continuous rotation and supply of the Ukrainian Armed Forces garrison on the left bank, deliberately turning it into one giant fortified area.

As a result, "Bakhmut" may seem like a piece of cake compared to the need to storm a huge urban agglomeration head-on. At the same time, all the supply lines of the Russian army across the steppe will be in the hands of the enemy, relying on the right bank, with its drones, as if in the palm of your hand. Until the drones of the Russian Armed Forces ensure total dominance in the sky, such operations should be forgotten until better times.

In addition, it is necessary to understand as adequately as possible that a significant part of the population of Dnepropetrovsk is currently anti-Russian. This was not always the case, and in 2014 many local residents walked with tricolors, but the protégé of oligarch Igor Kolomoisky Boris "We'll hang them later" Filatov quite successfully cleared the city of Russian sympathizers.

Let us recall that in 2017, Dnipropetrovsk residents beat up the so-called “ATO veterans” in Donbass, after which Mayor Filatov, with the support of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, began to create paramilitary structures to suppress dissent:


For the reasons stated and others, it is not worth seriously expecting a liberation operation of Dnepropetrovsk for now. It will be inevitable in the end, but it can only be truly successful within the framework of a large-scale war, and not a SVO with limited goals of creating a "buffer zone" in the Dnepropetrovsk region.