Russia is concentrating troops and armor to launch a new offensive in southern Ukraine. Four Ukrainian military sources had warned EL PAÍS in the last two weeks of a large enemy movement in this theater of war. Vladislav Voloshin, colonel and spokesman for the Operations Command for the Southern Front (Tavria), confirmed the information this Friday, but added that it is still early to determine the magnitude of the Russian operation.
“At the moment, we can only confirm that the enemy is preparing assault groups to launch attacks in small infantry groups of between 5 and 10 soldiers,” Voloshin explained, and “it is also confirmed that they will use armored vehicles to support these assaults. ”.
Russia has improved its military tactics in the last year to avoid attacks with large columns that suffer numerous material losses, and has replaced them with constant assaults by small platoons that sting the Ukrainian defensive positions on different flanks, as explained to this newspaper in the last two official months of the country invaded in different enclaves of the war, in Kurájove, Pokrovsk (both in Donetsk) or on the Zaporizhia front itself.
“The Russians continue to throw meat to die. The tactic is to attack one of our positions from five or six sides, each group has four or five soldiers; Many will fall, but a group will reach the objective.” With this tactical change, human losses are not minimized, but the invader is achieving its greatest conquests in Donbas (in the east) since the start of the war in 2022.
The sectors in which the Ukrainian army expects the Russian offensive to take place are Huliaipole, Robotine or Kamianske, three municipalities close to the front. This area was precisely where kyiv’s failed counteroffensive took place in the summer of 2023. Their main success was the release of Robotine. , the Zaporizhia front has been at a standstill for more than a year.
Voloshin does not specify when they estimate these new hostilities may begin, but other military sources assumed in October that it would happen at the beginning of November. The ideal situation for the movement of armored vehicles is when the autumn rainy season ends and the cold begins, hardening the mud. The spokesperson for the Tavria Command also does not specify the number of enemy troops that are being concentrated for this operation, but other military sources indicate that there could be tens of thousands of soldiers and at least a hundred tanks, as well as armored infantry.
“It will be carnage, we are facing a very difficult situation,” says a battalion commander in the area who prefers to remain anonymous. Since September, his battalion has detected an increase in Russian reconnaissance groups infiltrating Ukrainian-controlled territory to determine the level of its defenses. .
The sources consulted admit surprise at the Russian ability to amass so many troops to open a new hot spot in the war. In recent weeks, the addition of more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers to the Kremlin forces to expel the Ukrainian army from the Russian province of Kursk has made headlines. The Russian regiments are progressing in that region and especially in Donetsk, while the Ukrainian defenses the ranks of its Armed Forces.
Take Donetsk and bomb Zaporizhia
Voloshin details that the invader may have two objectives: on the one hand, to approach the logistical lines in the province of Dnipro that reinforce the Ukrainian army in Donetsk, to cut them and allow “the complete capture of Donetsk.” The , in the province of Donetsk, which depend on their connection with the rear in Dnipro.
On the other hand, according to Voloshin, Russian troops want to get closer to the city of Zaporizhzhia “to make it easier to punish it with artillery and terrorize the population, as is happening in Kherson and Kharkiv.” To this end, the spokesperson for the military command indicates that Russia is preparing to transfer “all types of possible weapons” to the area. Russian aviation is hitting Zaporizhia with guided aerial bombs for the first time since last September. Sources from the military administration in the provincial capital explained to the EL PAÍS team at the end of October that they have activated plans to dynamite bridges and access roads to the city if necessary. This city, with 700,000 inhabitants before the war, is located just 30 kilometers from the front.
RBC assured that another reason for this possible enemy offensive is to distance Ukrainian troops from the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. The town of Kamianske, where the front is located, is 50 kilometers away. RBC stated that the purpose of this would be to consolidate the occupation of the region surrounding the plant in view of future negotiations to end the war.
The fear of a new Russian offensive coincides with Donald Trump’s victory in the United States presidential elections. The Republican candidate has lavished messages during the campaign against maintaining military aid to kyiv, and has stressed that his priority as president will be to force a quick negotiation between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky to end the war, even if it is at the cost of for Ukraine to give up territory. The digital medium Political public On November 6, US President Joe Biden wants to accelerate the shipment of weapons to Ukraine in his last two months in the White House.
Zelensky assured last October that his country has only received 10% of the more than 50 billion euros in military assistance that . This departure came too late, according to kyiv, because it was authorized after more than half a year of legislative blockade by the Republican Party.
