Russian army's main task is to break through to Izium area: military expert on Kupyansk-Lyman direction

He said this on Espreso. 

"The Kupyansk-Lyman direction is the center of the Russian occupation army's efforts, which has concentrated up to 120,000 personnel and 1,300 units of armored vehicles there. For comparison, Russia has 50,000 soldiers in the Avdiivka direction, the situation is almost the same in the Bakhmut direction, and up to 75,000 Russian soldiers block the Zaporizhzhia direction. Therefore, in my opinion, the main task of the invaders is to break through not to Kupyansk, but to the Izium area in order to form a strike group that will hang over the flanks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces concentrated in the Donetsk region," the military expert commented.

According to him, the invading forces aim to capture strategic points of Ukrainian defense, namely the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. That is, it is a reincarnation of the events of 2022, when the Russian Izium group was considered one of the most capable.

"And the events that are taking place now in the Kupyansk-Lyman sector cannot be separated into Kupyansk and Lyman. This indicates that the invaders have set a goal of complete occupation of Donetsk region. In my opinion, this is the plan of the Russian army's winter campaign. Let me remind you that the Ukrainian Armed Forces control 55% of the territory of Donetsk region. And this is the personal and military-political defeat of the Russian dictator, who signed a decree on September 30, 2022, to incorporate the so-called ‘DPR’ into the Russian Federation within the administrative borders of Donetsk region. Accordingly, the occupation army has not even fulfilled the first stage of the so-called special military operation," he emphasized. 

• On December 14, the General Staff reported that in the Kupyansk sector, Ukrainian defenders repelled 13 enemy attacks, and in the Lyman sector, the Defense Forces repelled an enemy attack east of Terny in the Donetsk region.
• On December 15, the Ukrainian General Staff reported that the Ukrainian military had repelled Russian attacks in the Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Kupyansk, Marinka, and Zaporizhzhia directions over the day. The Armed Forces also killed 1,090 soldiers.