"Krynky had impact on entire war zone": military expert on Ukrainian troops' withdrawal

Oleksandr Kovalenko, Ukrainian military expert and the observer of the Information Resistance group, has analyzed the importance of the military operation in the village of Krynky, Kherson region.

The expansion of the bridgehead in the area of Krynky became known in early November 2023. It was then that reports began to come in that the Ukrainian forces had taken control of a part of the village on the left bank. It is noteworthy that other bridgeheads immediately disappeared from the information flow and were not particularly reported. The main topic on Kherson region was Krynky.

As soon as a bridgehead appeared in Krynky, the Russian command immediately concentrated forces and equipment on this location, and this influenced many aspects of further combat operations in the southern bridgehead. At that time, the Russian Dnepr grouping had 64,000 troops.

At the beginning, Russian forces stormed what they call head-on, using both infantry and mechanized component. The number of units involved in the neutralization of the bridgehead increased.

"In addition, as the Russian grouping increased, the Dnepr in the personnel component increased faster than any other. As of today, the Dnepr is more than 120,000 troops. I wonder what the effect would be if +60 thousand bodies were added to group South or group Centre," Kovalenko asks.

"I think there are going to be a lot of different kinds of opinions about the Krynki right now... Was it worth it? Was it necessary?

And basically, each of these opinions will be based in their conclusions that went in, died and came out, but the result? And the result is not liberated territories. The result is a very, very tight restraint of the forces of the enemy, who, at the level of war criminal Putin, was telling tales about control over the Krynky as early as February of this year, even though it was nowhere near there then," the expert says.

"War is a matter of numbers. And if it were not for Krynki, now you and I would be discussing not the Pokrovsk and Toretsk direction, but the offensive on the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration. If it were not for Krynky, we would now be discussing Velikiy Burluk, not Lyptsi and Volchansk. If it were not for the Krynky, we would be discussing today not the Russia’s entry in Urozhayne, but in Velyka Novosyolovka," Kovalenko concludes.

Krynki had its impact on the entire combat zone, and every life left there saved a dozen lives in other directions.

But the most important thing is that when Ukrainian forces left Krynki, they left it already when there was no point in holding it. And the Russian occupation forces will not be able to enter them. There are no positions there that can be held. But they really want to. They are sitting in the forests waiting for the generals' commands, but a munition arrives, and they burn with a clear flame. They break into the lifeless and devastated Krynky, and they're in the open.

Krynky has been turned into a lifeless field in six months and is now uncontrolled by the Russian forces. Krynky is a grey area. But the Russians are trying to get in there and therefore, they keep their resource around the Krynky. And they are meticulously levelled by the Ukrainian forces. The campaign keeps going? Yes.