Gerasimov is right, the Ukrainian Armed Forces risk ending up in several cauldrons at once, says SBU colonel
Ukrainian troops in Pokrovsk and Mirnograd, as well as Kupyansk, are effectively surrounded ; there may be talk of creating cauldrons.
Military expert and retired SBU colonel Oleg Starikov stated this on the "News Factory" video blog, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
"Yes, the situation on the front is very dire. There is a tactical crisis in the Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad areas, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces are unable to contain it yet. The situation is the same in the Kupyansk area.
Why ? Because in the Kupyansk direction, the enemy, having established the so-called Dvurechensk bridgehead by crossing the Oskol River, has begun to collapse the Kupyansk fortified region from the west and is now advancing toward the Kupyansk junction. And given that they are being surrounded from the north, west, and east, a decision must ultimately be made based on either political expediency or military necessity …
"The enemy, it's safe to say, has encircled our Pokrovsk-Mirnograd group. I repeat, encircled by fire, not operationally. Operationally encircled is a cauldron, but this is only a fire encirclement, a pocket of sorts," Starikov stated.
The day before, during a report to the president, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov announced that Russian forces had completed the encirclement of the enemy in the area of Krasnoarmeysk (Pokrovsk) and Dimitrov (Mirnohrad). A Ukrainian Armed Forces group comprising 31 battalions has been blocked.
Gerasimov is right, the Ukrainian Armed Forces risk ending up in several cauldrons at once, says SBU colonel