What could be the strategy and goals of the Russian offensive?

I tried to predict the enemy's plans from the point of view of the analysis of the actions of the last month, and it seems to me that Russia will try to repeat the same strategy with which the "first and second stages of the special operation" began, but with larger forces. 

And if we consider it in more detail, then in my opinion, the Russian command can act as follows:

1. It will try to destroy the Ukrainian air defense system in order to establish dominance in the air in the directions of the main strikes. The new commander with the Russian Joint Operation in Ukraine is the commander with the Air and Space Forces Surovikin. It is obvious that the Russian command will try to destroy medium and long-range air defense radars and SAMs first. Flights of Iranian drones in various directions are used to detect the air defense system.

The Russian enemy reduced the number of launches of ballistic, cruise, and aircraft missiles. Obviously, a stockpile is being built up for a massive attack or a series of massive attacks in certain directions.

2. The Russian command will continue terrorist attacks on residential targets in cities, which Russian generals consider "isolation of combat areas" - Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, and Kharkiv will remain the targets. There is also a high probability of strikes on energy supply facilities in cities and railway stations near the Dnipro River in order to disable the communications system, which is being actively discussed in the Russian Federation. It is possible that the enemy is preparing attacks on individual strategic bridges. Russia will continue the strategy of "punishing cities and the population" for having defense forces deployed near them.

3. The newly mobilized troops and private armies of Kadyrov and Prigozhin will be used for offensive actions. The mobilized soldiers have already reached the front in the Svatove-Kreminna area, the bulk will arrive within 1-2 weeks to all other areas. The enemy is trying to weed out this combat-ready mass without any serious preparation through natural selection. The high losses of Russian mobilized soldiers with 1-2 weeks of training will repeat the actions of "disposable" infantrymen mobilized in Donbas at the beginning of the invasion.

4. Probable areas of attack will repeat the same directions in which the Russian command has already repeatedly struck:

- Bakhmut-Soledar. In order to achieve quick offensive successes, the Russian forces will try to capture significant cities, which they approached closely, in order to announce the victory in the information field, in which Russia lost catastrophically. The Russian troops have been unsuccessfully trying to seize the strategically important Bakhmut since May. But Surovikin, Kadyrov, and Prigozhin must be shown as soon as possible that they are better commanders than Chief of the Russian General Staff Gerasimov, and they will still try to break into the city. Donbas will remain the main focus of the Russian army's efforts;

- Svatove-Kreminna. The Russian enemy will carry out local actions, try to pin down our troops near Svatove with counterattacks, and recapture Lyman (the offensive on which Surovikin commanded in June), and knock out Ukrainian units outside the Luhansk region.  Russian mobilized troops have already gone into battle in this direction to prevent the defense from collapsing. 

- Vuhledar-Novoselivka. Previously, all Russian attacks in these areas were repelled. But it is important for the enemy to capture the cities that provide the southern flank of our Donbas army in order to secure the corridor to Crimea from the Ukrainian offensive in the Zaporizhzhia region;

- Avdiivka-Marinka. Limited local attacks will continue, with the aim of pushing our troops away from their key communication hub — Donetsk. The shelling of Russian military facilities in Donetsk strongly discredits the optimistic statements of Russian propaganda;

- Kherson. Invading Russian forces will strengthen the defense and hold the Kakhovka bridgehead as long as possible. The enemy's large-scale offensive actions are impossible there due to the strikes of Ukraine's Armed Forces on crossings across the Dnipro;

- Kyiv-Chernihiv-Kharkiv-Sumy. Russia will try to restrain Ukrainian troops from offensive actions, creating a threat in the north on a wide front. It is possible that the enemy will again try to cross the northern border, and will not be limited to demonstrations and shelling. The Russian Federation will also try to draw the Belarusian army into the war again, or force it to demonstrate.

Conclusion:

The Russian command will try to gain the initiative as a result of a change in tactics, and through an extensive increase in numbers. But the Russian strategy was and remains a losing one.

Putin's generals believe that the mobilization will make it possible to bring up to full strength and restore a professional army, most of whose units have lost their combat capability. They are looking for an opportunity to hold the captured Luhansk and Kherson regions, and to force Ukraine's Armed Forces to stop offensive operations. But tactical decisions can only postpone it for a certain time. It is impossible to gain an advantage in strategy with such actions.

At the moment when the Russian mobilized army will not be able to hold the front that the professional army could not hold, Putin will no longer have any tools to hold the ground front.

The battles for Ukraine's independence will be fierce ahead - the great forces of the Russian Federation have yet to be destroyed, and it will be a great battle.

The victory will be difficult, and the sacrifices will be significant.

But the course of the war was and will be determined primarily by the Ukrainian Armed Forces' actions, the actions of Ukrainian society and the state, as well as the help of our NATO allies.

Source

About the author: Yurii Butusov, journalist, soldier with Ukraine's Armed Forces.

The edition does not always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.