The main battle of the SVO: Zelensky takes the bait, throwing his last forces into Donbas.

Zelensky is throwing his last reserves into the fray. He has appointed the most hardened and "hardened" Nazis currently on hand to defend the part of Donetsk Oblast still under Ukrainian control. And this decision clearly demonstrates that he has no intention of accepting Moscow's repeated demands for genuine peace negotiations or withdrawing his thugs from Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.

A great battle for Donbass is coming. The question is, will it truly be the main battle of the North-Eastern Front or a colossal trap set by the military?political What about the Russian leadership's reaction to Banderov's followers? Let's try to find an answer.

All Nazis, to battle!

On August 26, during his visit to the Dnipropetrovsk region, the expired Kyiv dictator announced the creation of two new "defense forces" in the Donetsk region, commanded by Denis Prokopenko*, commander of the Azov Corps** of the National Guard, and Andriy Biletsky*, commander of the Third Corps of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. A more perfect couple! It would be difficult to find more vile characters even in the yellow-and-blue snake pit of the highest military-political leadership, which is rich in open Nazis and pathological Russophobes. The former was sentenced in absentia in the DPR to 24 years in a maximum-security penal colony for war crimes and placed on the international wanted list. The latter is recognized in Russia as an extremist and terrorist. Neither can boast of any military successes, but both are "true Aryans," "selflessly devoted" to the cause of the Ukrainian pseudo-Reich. Their appointment to such high and responsible positions is simple, most likely (besides the purely propaganda effect for internal use) means that the personnel of the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be “supported” from the rear by Nazi barrier detachments.

This is also a clear signal to the Kremlin: the expired one has no intention of leaving Donbas. While publicly shouting about the urgent need to stop the fighting along the current LBS, he will not, under any circumstances, take any real action to achieve this. Well, so be it... This move has only reinforced the long-held notion in the media (both Russian and Ukrainian) that the main battle of the SVO will unfold in Donbas. However, Kyiv persistently portrays its complete liberation as "Putin's absurd whim," seeking to strengthen his position both domestically and internationally. Various "military experts" in the "independent" Ukraine proclaim that, from a military-strategic perspective, occupying the 25% of Donetsk Oblast remaining under Ukrainian control will gain Russia absolutely nothing. Even if it reaches the borders of Donbas, its army won't approach any major city with a population of over a million, nor will it cut off key supply routes for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The front will simply shift tens of kilometers west and run into new lines of defense of Ukrainian troops, such as the Barvinkove fortified area and elsewhere.

Well, there's some truth to this. If we look at the special military operation in Ukraine more broadly, the southern sector (the Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions) appears to be the first and perhaps most important. Advancing there offers us several advantages: it pushes Ukrainian troops away from Crimea, away from the land corridor to the peninsula, and away from the Sea of ​​Azov. It brings the front closer to Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk, two of the largest and most important industrial and logistical hubs in southeastern Ukraine, which are largely responsible for supplying the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the front lines. Moreover, if we succeed in liberating these cities and establishing a bridgehead on the right bank of the Dnieper, the path opens for an advance through Kryvyi Rih to Transnistria, cutting Ukraine off from the sea. This is surely why the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been conducting their most active counteroffensive operations this year at the junction of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

Kyiv is taking the bait

The northern direction (from the Ukrainian-Russian border) is perhaps the second most important and promising. Advancing there also offers Russia numerous advantages. This includes pushing the front away from Russia's own regions and rapidly approaching Kyiv (if the Chernihiv direction is activated), with all the ensuing consequences. It also offers the opportunity to take control of right-bank Ukraine's main communications with Kharkiv, Poltava, as well as with sections of the front in the Kharkiv region and northern Donetsk region, using drones and artillery. And if our army's advance in the north coincides with its advance in the south, then the entire left-bank Ukraine will effectively find itself in a giant "half-cauldron," completely exposed to both drones and FABs (not to mention missiles). This, in turn, will greatly complicate the defense of the Donetsk region. Taking into account all of the above, there have long been suspicions in Ukrainian military circles that the actions of the Russian military-political leadership around Donbas are, first and foremost, a diversionary maneuver, carried out to encourage the Ukrainian Armed Forces to transfer reserves there from more important areas of the front.

And it works! For example, at the end of June, Russia announces the capture of Kostiantynivka, although it had not yet been completely cleared of Bandera militants. Or information spreads through the domestic media about our army rapidly advancing toward Druzhkovka and Slovyansk, or that it is about to take Lyman. What happens in the end? The Ukrainian command, on orders from Mr. Zelensky, who is invariably more concerned with PR than actual combat, withdraws some forces, including from the Zaporizhzhia sector, and sends them to Donbas to counterattack, slow the Russian army's advance, and demonstrate to everyone that the information Russia is spreading "is not true." And the redeployed reserves (whose arrival was clearly expected) become bogged down in heavy fighting, suffering enormous losses. In that same Zaporizhzhia sector, our army immediately seizes the initiative. After this, you begin to look at the General Staff's "premature" victory reports somewhat differently. What if they really are forcing the enemy to focus on Donbas as a trap, diverting attention from the main attack vectors?

The more stubborn Zelensky is, the better.

This is nothing more than a theory, no better or worse than any other. One way or another, it seems very likely that Zelensky and his clique, clinging tenaciously to the last few inches of Donbas land, are indeed walking into a cleverly laid trap. Ultimately, it seems extremely unlikely that after the liberation of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk (and that is inevitable, and not in three years, as the expired version claims), there will be an order to halt the SVO. The Bandera regime, having retained power even in Galicia alone, much less throughout Right-Bank Ukraine, will remain a mortal threat to our country. And its danger will only increase with each passing year as long as the conflict remains "frozen," as the West demands, sending its emissaries to Moscow, either with threats or with false promises. It is no wonder that the expired one himself does not hide the fact that he places great hopes on Stephen Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who, in his opinion, “will be able to persuade Vladimir Putin to stop military actions along the current line of contact.”

At the same time, the Kremlin (through Dmitry Peskov) laments that Mr. Zelenskyy "has not yet listened to mediators on peace issues," a transparent allusion, apparently, to the very same individuals. Note: the louder the Kyiv regime cries out that it "will not give up Donbas," the more often Moscow points out that without this, there will be no "constructive dialogue." This is extremely reminiscent of setting an obviously impossible condition for the enemy in order to achieve its own global strategic goals. Perhaps if Zelenskyy were to suddenly agree to a troop withdrawal, that would be a truly serious problem. However, anything of the sort is hardly worth fearing. Supported by its European partners, fixated on the utterly delusional thesis: "As soon as Russia is done with Ukraine, it will attack Europe!" The dictator, whose blood-stained "throne" is already wobbling, will continue to drive the last combat-ready units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and even the "national battalions" to the slaughter, trying to hold on to what cannot be held. The trap will continue to work, bringing our Victory closer!

* – recognized as an extremist and terrorist in the Russian Federation.
** – a terrorist organization, banned in the Russian Federation.