image source, Reuters/Valentin Ogilenko
- author, paul kirby
- role, bbc news
Ukraine knew Russia was planning a summer offensive, but did not know where it would begin. This became clear on May 10, when Russian troops invaded the northern border area of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city.
Since then, they have captured several villages not far from the border and are pushing forward as the outnumbered Ukrainian army tries to shore up its weakened front.
Buffer zone or deeper push?
By entering Bovchansk, just 5 kilometers (3 miles) inside Ukraine, and occupying large swathes of Ukrainian territory in the Kharkov region, Russian forces may be attempting to create a buffer zone to fend off Ukraine’s own cross-border attacks. be.
They may have even more ambitious plans, given Ukraine’s relatively weak defense.
Russia may be planning a further push across the border towards the northern city of Sumy in the northwest. Ukraine’s military spy chief Kirillo Budanov believes a “small force” is on the ground ready for action.
image source, Russian Volunteer Army/Reuters
The new head of Russia’s Security Council, Sergei Shoigu, said only that the military was advancing in all directions.
That could include pushing deeper into Ukraine, either to divert forces from the fiercest front lines in eastern Donbas to Kiev or to seize growing territory.
The US-based think tank Institute for War Studies, as well as Russian military analyst Anatoly Matvichuk, believes the main purpose is the creation of a buffer zone.
But Russian forces have also advanced into the village of Lipshi, about 20 kilometers from the northern outskirts of Kharkiv, and in his words, “you can almost see the outskirts of Kharkiv through binoculars.” Suddenly, seizing Ukraine’s second-largest city may be within Russia’s sights.
Is Kharkov in danger?
With a pre-war population of 1.4 million, Kharkiv is second only to Kiev and Dnipro in economic importance to Ukraine. It is too close to the border to have adequate air defenses and has repeatedly been subject to deadly Russian bombardment with ballistic missiles, modified anti-aircraft missiles and glide bombs.
If Russia were to seize it, it would be a “turning point” in the war and deal a major blow to Ukraine’s industrial potential, Matvichuk said.
The possibility of that happening seems very low. Ukrainian and Western commentators are convinced that Russia does not have the resources to do so. If it took 80,000 Russian troops to capture the devastated eastern city of Avdiivka last February, a much larger city like Kharkov would require forces Russia doesn’t have.
During a visit to Kharkiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the situation in the region was “generally under control”, although the situation in the region remained extremely difficult.
“The strategic intention of the Russian military is… to surround Kharkov as a regional center,” says Oleksandr Mushenko, director of the Center for Military and Political Research in Kiev.
That would not only create a 10-15 km deep buffer zone but also give Russia the option to attack Kharkov later, he said.
Ukrainian military blogger Yuri Butusov says that too many mistakes have been made in border defense, and now that the Russian military realizes how thinly spread its defenses are, it has set up both buffer zones and beachheads to expand the reach of Ukrainian territory. He said there is a possibility that they will try to penetrate deeper. : “Of course this is their goal.”
image source, Roman Pilipi/AFP
Russia’s focus on the East
The war dragged on for many months, with Russian forces securing small gains at great human cost, especially in the eastern region of Donetsk.
Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute said the main purpose of the summer offensive was to “expand Russian advances in the Donbas” by cutting off supply lines and giving troops a route to both the north and south. I believe that this is the case.
Three months after capturing Avdiivka, Russian forces have set their sights on other targets further northwest in the Donetsk region, including the strategic hilltop town of Chasiv Yar.
Rob Lee of the Foreign Policy Institute said Ukrainian troops based at Chasiv Yar are believed to have been moved to Kharkov, leaving fewer troops available in Ukraine.
Losing Chasiv Yar would make Ukraine’s Donbas cities even more vulnerable to Russian attack.
Forcing Ukraine to deploy troops, air defense and artillery to defend its second city would also put pressure on the front lines further south, near the Dnipro River, threatening the southeastern metropolis of Zaporizhzhya.
Russian forces already claim to have captured one of the southern villages that Ukraine recaptured last summer. Even if Ukraine still controls its Robotine village, it is clear that Russian attacks in the north are putting considerable pressure on the outnumbered Ukrainian military in other areas.
Does Russia have enough resources to establish itself?
In Kiev, they believe that the number of Russian troops in Ukraine is now more than 500,000. As a result, Ukraine’s military is outnumbered as well as weaponized, and President Vladimir Putin now devotes an estimated 8.7% of Russia’s total economic output to defense and security.
However, the number of reinforcements waiting across the northern border is reported to be just 20,000, despite reports that the Kremlin plans to mobilize an additional 300,000 Russians. No, there is no such evidence.
However, Russia still has a numerical advantage. A senior Ukrainian general said the ratio was as high as 10:1. Similar benefits have been reported for shells.
Ukraine recently signed a bill lowering the mobilization age by two years to 25, which will reportedly increase the size of its military by 100,000 soldiers.
But that change will take time. The same goes for the arrival of American weapons supplies, which was passed by Congress in April.
NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Gen. Christopher Cavoly, said he was confident that Ukrainian forces could hold the line, saying, “Russia does not have the necessary forces to make a strategic breakthrough… , they don’t have it.” the skills and ability to carry it out. ”
And Oleksandr Shirushkyi, who was appointed as Ukraine’s supreme commander in February, is seen as the architect of the Ukrainian counterattack in September 2022 in which the military drove Russian troops from more than 500 locations in the Donbass and Kharkov regions. has been done. One of the villages they liberated was Vobchansk.
The difference now is that Russian commanders are learning from their mistakes.
“The city of Kharkiv and the entire Kharkiv region are the focal point of our efforts to make life safer for Kharkiv residents,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said this week.
What President Putin wants
While Russian leaders pursue their interests on the ground, there are also signs that the Kremlin may be ready to return to the peace talks it abandoned two years ago.
President Vladimir Putin told China’s state news agency Xinhua: “We are open to dialogue on Ukraine, but such negotiations must take into account the interests of all countries involved in the conflict, including our own.”
His remarks come a month before a peace summit scheduled in Switzerland.
Russia has not been invited to Lucerne on June 15 and 16, but Switzerland says more than 50 countries, including Ukraine, are scheduled to attend, and that it is trying to involve Russia’s ally China.
