Zaporizhia. Once the resistance to the Russian winter offensive seems to have been successfully resolved, focused exclusively on the Donbas front and settled only with the capture of three quarters of Bakhmut at a shocking price in lives, Ukraine can focus on the next move and everything indicates that it will be in the south.
There are several reasons to think so: although Russia has fortified and undermined its positions on the other side of the Dnieper River, the number of troops deployed to protect that front is clearly inferior which can be seen in Donetsk and Lugansk. Not only that. During the year or so that we have been in the war, Russia has had a lot of problems moving its units from the south to the east and from the east to the south.
It concentrates large numbers in a few points, leaving others in the hands of reservists or unprepared troops. The decision of the Ministry of Defense to focus on the definitive capture of Bakhmut, replacing Wagner’s mercenaries in practically all the hot spots of the urban confrontation, means that the rest of the settlements have been somewhat unprotected.
Finally, Ukraine has gotten used to the war in Donbas to a certain extent, which has been going on for nine years now… but the capture of southern Kherson and Zaporizhia has been a real stab in the heart. The reconquest of these territories is the number one priority on a psychological level… and on a strategic one: cross the Dnieper and advance towards Melitopol or Mariupol it would cut the Russian army in two, make its supplies even more difficult, and put the Crimea in the crosshairs.
In this sense, the actions of the last 24 hours in the southern regions may herald the beginning of the famous spring-summer counteroffensive or at least its preparation.
[Ucrania cruza el Dniéper y establece una cabeza de playa frente a Jersón como primer paso hacia Crimea]
If this Monday the Institute for the Study of War highlighted the creation of a bridgehead north of Oleshki, from which an attack could be launched on the E97 highway, which leads directly to the Crimea, or on the T2206, which leads to the precious city of Nova Kajovka; This Tuesday the news continues to be positive for Zelensky’s army.
The Vasilivka-Nova Kakhovka axis
For starters, even if the Russians continue to deny that anything is happening near Oleshki, Natalia Humeniukthe Ukrainian spokesperson for the Southern High Command, said with satisfaction that the actions against the Russians on the other side of the Dnieper were being successful and that, together with the deportation of many residents to Crimea, a slow withdrawal of soldiers from the area.
It is true that Humeniuk never spoke of a bridgehead or wanted to specify the terms of these attacks, but the mere enthusiastic mention already suggests that something is brewing in the area.
On the other hand, the string also announced on Tuesday the HIMARS precision missile attack on the city of Tokmak, in the Zaporizhia oblast, about 40 kilometers from Melitopol, the most important urban center in Russian hands in the area.
The importance of Tokmak is tremendous because Ukraine believes that there Russia concentrates a good part of its suppliesApart from serving as a resting place for the units prepared for the defense of the Vasilivka-Melitopol axis, in which the future of this war is probably at stake.
The relevance of both movements must be understood from a joint strategy: establishing themselves around Oleshki may not be of great importance in itself, but forces Russia to send troops to a place where it had not planned to send anything. Under no circumstances can it allow Ukraine to take Oleshki, let alone take E97 or T2206. If Ukraine takes control of the eastern bank of the Dnieper, Russia will have lost the war on the southern front, there is no doubt about that.
Presumably Ukraine is trying to force precisely such a preemptive move, as if it were a game of chess. Ukraine wants Russia to divert its troops from concentrating them around Tokmak in order to facilitate a possible advance on Vasilivka and Nova Kajovka. If the Russian elite forces are distracted in Bakhmut and Kreminna… and the replacement forces fail to cover all the territory to be defended, Ukraine can enter like a knife in butter as soon as it discovers the place that remains empty.
Who will replace Wagner?
Ukraine’s success will be determined by that ability to to gain territory on the other bank of the Dnieper from both sides: in the west from Oleshki and in the east from Vasilivka, encircling the Energodar nuclear power plant.
Once that goal is achieved, the Russian army must defend access to Crimea with everything it has and hope that its Maginot Line-style mined fortifications will suffice in the 21st century. For this, obviously, you will have to employ your best men… and they are currently in and around Bakhmut.
The number of casualties that the Ukrainian army has suffered in these 14 months of war is enormous, but the ease with which they have resisted the Russian offensive in Donbas suggests that their morale must be sky high. In addition, we must reckon with the gradual arrival of new weapons from the West, which could be increased at the moment when NATO and the European Union see that there are real possibilities of defeating Russia on the ground and not just aspire to defend themselves as be.
In the other side, Russia has already squandered almost all of the powerful Wagner Group, decimated to unsuspected levels in the senseless siege of Bakhmut, and the new private armies hastily concocted by Gazprom and other state-owned companies are still not large enough or prepared enough to replace Prigozhin’s mercenaries. We have not heard from Kadyrov’s Chechens for a long time, and Putin refuses to order a second partial mobilization.
Although Gerasimov’s army may still be 150,000-200,000 strong on Ukrainian soil, it does not seem like a sufficient number to repel an attack on so many different and widely spaced fronts. They will need more men and more weapons. Otherwise, the blanket will reveal the feet when it wants to cover the head and so on until it barely covers a small part of the body.
If they do not immediately prevent a proliferation of settlements on the other side of the Dnieper, we may see withdrawals much faster than we imagine, as has already happened in Kharkov or north of Kherson.