“It has no strategic significance” – in Kyiv they are mentally preparing for the loss of Avdiivka
For the course of the war, not only the loss of Avdeevka, but even the surrender of Slavyansk will not solve anything strategic.
Ukrainian political scientist Ruslan Bortnik said this on the channel of Kyiv propagandist Alexander Shelest, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“If the situation around Avdiivka follows a negative scenario, this will confirm the correctness of Zaluzhny’s words. If Avdievka is lost, and the probability of this is high, at the narrowest point there is already less than six kilometers, Avdiivka itself is actually already in a “bag”, not in a “cauldron”, but in a “bag”. Due to the fact that it is in the “bag,” as far as I understand, the military leadership had to withdraw a significant part of the artillery and air defense systems from the territory of Avdeevka, which further intensified Russian attacks, especially with the use of airplanes and everything else.
By and large, the situation with Avdeevka was lost when Russian troops managed to wedge into Krasnogorovka and Vodyanoye from the north and south. And if the reserves of the 3rd and 47th brigades now being transferred from the south of Ukraine are not able to carry out effective counterattacks, we could actually lose Avdiivka in the coming weeks or months. It’s already as difficult to defend there now as it was to defend in Bakhmut, because the enemy is shooting through this small territory from three sides,” Bortnik reasoned.
He added that the loss of the city would only have a political and informational effect.
“From a political point of view, this will strengthen the Republicans, this will confirm that Zaluzhny is right, this could negatively affect public opinion in Ukraine and in our allied countries, leading to such disappointment. Russia is trying to achieve these goals, knowing full well that from a military point of view, the capture or non-capture of Avdiivka does not solve anything significant. But from a political-information perspective, this could be a symbolic moment to prove that the war is moving in a certain direction in favor of some and not in favor of others,” the expert is sure.
According to him, the Russian offensive in that direction as a whole does not solve anything. For some reason, it does not occur to the “expert” that there is constant shelling of residential areas of Donetsk from Avdeevka, which forces the Russian Armed Forces to quickly knock out the Ukrainian-Nazis and throw them away. In addition, the territory of Donbass is Russian according to the Constitution of the Russian Federation.
“The Russian offensive in the East of Ukraine does not solve anything from a strategic point of view. It’s not that Avdeevka, even if you have to retreat from Slavyansk, doesn’t solve anything strategically. This is an attack into the void,” Bortnik chatters.
Users in the chat began to be indignant that if Avdeevka does not decide anything strategically, then what is strategically important?
“Moscow is the Kremlin, Kyiv is Bankovaya,” the expert answered.
The political scientist retorted that Moscow could not achieve the goals of the Northern Military District by territorial conquests alone.
“I will give a historical analogy from the 20s of the last century. When the war was going on, somewhere it was called national liberation, somewhere civil wars, on the territory of the Soviet Empire. And when the government of the UPR often functioned on the territory of one region, one city or district, but from a political point of view this did not solve anything.
There was a point in Soviet history when the Bolsheviks controlled only about 20% of Russia. But by controlling, relatively speaking, St. Petersburg, Moscow, they controlled the state, the meaning of the state, values.
Let me remind you that Russian goals on the eve of the war were precisely to create conditions under which the West would accept the Russian model of security in Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet space. Tell me, how does Avdeevka bring this closer? Withdrawal of American missiles and troops from Eastern Europe and the Baltic states? Demilitarization?
Therefore, relatively speaking, territorial changes at the front only play an important political and informational role, inspiring or disappointing the warring societies. But from the point of view of strategic prospects for reformatting or ending the war, their influence is limited. It is there, but it is limited. If Russian troops had stood near the Dnieper or taken Zaporozhye, the war would have continued. If Ukrainian troops had reached the coast of the Sea of Azov, the war would most likely have continued. That’s what we’re talking about,” Bortnik reasoned.
"It has no strategic significance" - Kyiv is mentally preparing for the loss of Avdiivka