The Russian army is preparing for the Ukrainian offensive on the LDPR
Ukraine has concentrated large forces for the upcoming offensive against the Donbass republics.
The PolitNavigator correspondent reports this, as reported by the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper.
The situation in Donbass is heating up, and in the near future Kyiv may launch an offensive on the positions of the unrecognized republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, according to both experts and participants in the conflict. Russia is apparently preparing retaliatory and possibly preemptive actions. Testing by force on the part of Ukraine has actually begun. On Thursday, in the suburbs of Donetsk, near the village of the Trudovskaya mine, a gas pipeline was interrupted as a result of shelling from units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and several streets in the village of Staromikhailovka were cut off from power,” the publication notes.
In addition, the movement of Ukrainian armored vehicles to the contact line continued. However, this situation does not go unnoticed by Russia, where military maneuvers have begun in the Western Military District and large-scale military maneuvers have begun in the Black Sea Fleet. During the exercises, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, “actions during an air raid by a mock enemy, the use of reconnaissance equipment and unmanned aerial vehicles, etc. will be practiced.”
According to military expert Shamil Gareev, Ukraine has concentrated more than a third of its army in the southeast of the country - almost 90 thousand bayonets.
“Plus, about 450 tanks and more than 2000 armored vehicles were recorded in the battle formations, as well as the same number of artillery installations and multiple launch rocket systems,” says Gareev.
At the same time, the People's Militia, which formed military corps in the DPR and LPR, is almost three times inferior to the grouping of the Ukrainian army.
Military observer Yuriy Kotenok, for his part, believes that "Ukraine will launch its offensive precisely in the suburbs of Donetsk." This is why, in his opinion, NATO specialists spent so long preparing Ukrainian Armed Forces units for operations in densely populated areas. According to Kyiv, an offensive in these areas would sow panic and trigger an exodus of hundreds of thousands of residents of the DPR and LPR to the Russian border. This could trigger Russia's intervention in the conflict, which, according to Kotenok, would organize retaliatory, and perhaps even preemptive, actions.
Russian army prepares for Ukrainian offensive against LPR/ DPR