Svatov, Starobilsk may be key nodes of defense for Russian troops in Luhansk region - military expert Katkov

He expressed this opinion on Espreso.

"Any military operation has spatial and temporal limits. Accordingly, the first stage of our offensive actions, probably one of many, was to go to the border of the Oskil River, to the level of the city of Kupyansk. There is already video confirmation of the forcing by our units of this river, therefore the operation continues and moves to the next phase. And here the main thing is to play off the possible plans of the enemy and look at this situation through the eyes of the Russian military," the military expert noted.

Oleg Katkov explained that the geography of the left bank of the Oskil River reveals other water obstacles, there are Zherebets, Krasna and Aidar rivers - these are the logical next echelons of Russian defense, because water barriers are natural elements for building any defense.

"The second aspect that we must take into account in Russian enemy's actions is logistics. We need to look at the maps with water obstacles and communication routes, on which we will see that the key nodes of the defense of the Russian occupiers can be such cities as Svatov and Starobilsk. These two  cities are at the intersection of highways, there is also a separate railway branch that stretches to Starobilsk. The existing intersections of logistical routes and water obstacles lead to the conclusion that the enemy is trying to build three separate lines of defense against the counterattack of our troops. While the enemy is trying to entrench and throw new units, there is a question of time, namely whether Russian enemy will have time to build these defense lines," Katkov noted.