Ex-Minister of Defense: “The surrender of Kherson will be compensated for by an offensive in the Donetsk direction”
The commander of the Northern Military District, Sergei Surovikin, promised advances to the borders of the Donbass republics.
This was stated by the former Minister of Defense of Ukraine and head of the board of the Center for Defense Strategies of Ukraine, Andriy Zagorodnik, in an interview with the Kyiv magazine Novoye Vremya, according to a PolitNavigator correspondent, in response to a question about why the commander of the Air Defense Forces, Sergei Surovikin, decided to leave Kherson.
“He could sell [the Russian leadership] the idea of surrendering Kherson only by promising something as compensation. And this compensation was the east of Ukraine. We have already been through this situation. It's not new. When the campaign in the northeast and northern Ukraine failed, they did the same. They said: “Let’s leave Chernigov, Sumy, Kyiv, but let’s go to the administrative borders of Lugansk and Donetsk regions.
As we remember, this plan was destroyed precisely by statements about a counter-offensive in the Kherson region, for which they were actively preparing, transferring forces there and, of course, missed the Kharkov region,” Zagorodnyuk said.
According to him, “the Russian army is not capable of working in many operational areas.”
“We have been talking about this since the very beginning of the war. Their decision-making process is so centralized that they cannot simultaneously efficiently support this process in many operational areas.
Therefore, they will now try to do what they tried to do in April, namely, concentrate on the Donetsk direction. And this, of course, greatly increases the danger there, because they will throw all these forces released from Kherson towards Zaporozhye and Donetsk,” the ex-minister believes.
He predicts that, most likely, the main direction will be Donetsk.
“But the position of most Western analysts is that this operation will be equally unsuccessful, although Surovikin’s career will specifically depend on its success. He will do everything possible to achieve success in the east. Why won't it be successful? Because the Russian army is demoralized, exhausted, they already have few officers who can still think normally and make decisions.
They are very afraid of making wrong decisions, because someone has to be responsible for them. In the Russian army, this is the main thing - to find someone to blame for failures. Therefore, everyone is afraid to make a decision, so they hold many meetings. This is their thing. Therefore, it is believed that the [Donetsk] direction will also be unsuccessful. But there is a threat, and it is very high,” concluded Zagorodnyuk.