Russia's goal is to establish southern flank in Pokrovsk direction - military expert Kovalenko

He shared his opinions with Espreso TV.

“We are at the stage of a defensive strategy, the purpose of which is to exhaust the enemy. How can you exhaust the enemy? The enemy can be exhausted by turning every meter of our territory into hell for them, so that they lose much more resources than we do, every settlement, every village should turn into hell for them, and in fact, it is partly so. Chasiv Yar has turned into hell for them, Robotyne ledge has turned into hell for them, Siversk direction is hell for them. Again, Serebryanka forest, the Lyman-Kupyansk axis - they have many locations where they are losing a huge amount of resources and cannot achieve any success,” he said.

The military expert noted that there are areas that have turned into a “meat grinder” for Russian forces.

“In turn, the Toretsk-Pokrovsk direction is dissonant, really dissonant, there are some locations where Russians really feel like they are in a meat grinder. For example, Hrodivka has turned into a meat grinder for them, Vozdvyzhenka is a meat grinder. Now they are trying to reach Selydove, they are storming Selydove, but it has also turned into a meat grinder for them. Novohrodivka, yes, it was difficult for them to pass through there, but Novohrodivka did not turn into the hell it could have become, just like Ocheretyne. And Karlivka, near the Karlivka reservoir, has turned into this hell, they can't do anything about it now, they are constantly storming Karlivka, but we see that they have zero results. They are now trying to bypass it by moving south from Novohrodivka.There are many inconsistencies here, and we need to determine who is responsible for these discrepancies. In some areas, the defense by the Ukrainian Armed Forces is exceptionally strong, while in others, the situation appears to be, to put it mildly, quite strange,” Kovalenko says. 

He also voiced his forecast for the Pokrovsk direction.  

“In my opinion, the main goal of the Russians now is to create a southern flank after they have entered Novohrodivka, because if they continue their movement directly towards Pokrovsk, they will have a problem with their southern and northern flanks. Their northern flank is more or less tied up in Ocheretyne, the same as the 0511 road, Vozdvyzhenka, and they are not so worried about it, especially given the Toretsk agglomeration, where there are fighting now. But the southern flank, especially taking into account not only Selydove, but also Hirnyk, Izmailivka, Kurakhivka, Zoriane, they are worried that there could be a breakthrough through the Karlivka reservoir and north of the Vovcha River. And then a serious potential of the Russians may be surrounded, so they will now be engaged in the formation of the southern flank, and this will take some time, that is, the main offensive on Pokrovsk may be postponed until the end of September, early October. Although we have seen unpredictability and neglect of human resources on the part of Russian commanders many times before, because now they are regrouping, they are constantly creating conditions for offensive actions, they are constantly intensifying their efforts in one direction or another, so it is quite possible that they will try to continue moving to the Pokrovsk direction, although again, they will not dare to launch a full-fledged offensive and storm Pokrovsk without forming a southern flank,” the expert said.

• Ivan Stupak, a military expert and a member of the Security Service of Ukraine in 2004-2015, believes that the first battles for the city of Pokrovsk will begin in a week or two.