Ukrainian counterattack | Ukraine and Russia are now assessing each other’s weak points, says the professor of military management

The current attacks are probing as Ukraine looks for ways to break through the Russian defense line. The key is to keep the new equipment protected on the way to break-in points, says Aki-Mauri Huhtinen.

Ukraine and Russia each reported heavy fighting on Friday. Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Hanna Maljar told In the Telegram communication service, that heavy fighting will continue. According to him, Russia will continue to focus on its most significant efforts in the directions of Lyman, Bahmut, Avdijivka and Marjinka.

“The situation is tense in all areas of the front,” Maljar wrote.

The Russian armed forces announced on Friday morning that fierce battles have taken place in the regions of Donetsk and Zaporizhia, news agency Reuters reports. According to Maljar, Russia continued defensive measures in the direction of Zaporizhia.

Aki-Mauri Huhtinen

Ukraine’s counterattack, expected throughout the spring influence finally started. In practice, however, it is difficult to define the exact start time of the counterattack, as it is a multi-phased, phased operation involving different types of weapons, elaborates the professor of military management Aki-Mauri Huhtinen from the Finnish National Defense University.

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“The planning and preparation of the counterattack must have already started at the turn of the year, and the Ukrainian forces have been training to be able to use Western equipment,” he says.

“In the past months, it has been seen that Ukraine has shaped the future battle space and sought to destroy transport hubs, command centers, equipment depots and artillery stations that are important to Russia. For example, a few weeks ago, Ukraine attacked Russia’s supply centers in Mariupol behind the front line with long-range weapons.”

On Friday, also the Russian president Vladimir Putin said the Ukrainian counteroffensive had begun. In a video published on Telegram, Putin said, that the counterattack would not have produced results. The matter was reported by Reuters.

Russians according to war bloggers, heavy fighting would have taken place in the Zaporizhia region near the city of Orihiv. Orihiv is a natural transit point towards the coastal lands sought by Ukraine, Huhtinen estimates.

It has been rumored that Ukraine would try to take the route cleared in the Zaporizhia region through the area between Mariupol and Melitopol to the shores of the Sea of ​​Azov. In this way, it would split the territory occupied by Russia in the south in two. At the same time, Russia’s important land connection to the Crimean peninsula would be cut off.

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“Maintaining the troops left in the West would be very difficult for Russia, and Ukraine could focus on recapturing the isolated region.”

However, Russia has had time to build a strong and multi-layered defense line in the Zaporizhia area. Now the question is whether Ukraine will succeed in breaking it.

Huhtinen believes that so far the battles have not been locked in one place, but that both Ukraine and Russia are evaluating each other’s possible weak points.

“The current attacks are probing: Ukraine is trying to find where it can get through the first lines of defense,” he states.

If Ukraine manages to breach the defense lines at one point, it will probably concentrate more troops there.

“Perhaps in about a week we will see if there will be a significant breach in the front and main defense line, where Ukraine’s main attack is concentrated.”

“But the whole war will not be solved in a week. If no significant progress is made by the fall, Ukraine will have to reassess the situation.”

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Russia claims to have destroyed 21 Ukrainian tanks on key battlefronts in the Zaporizhia and Donetsk regions. Throughout the war, Russia has tried to exaggerate Ukraine’s losses while Ukraine has kept quiet about them.

“Already a week ago, Russia said they destroyed Leopards, and in some of the pictures they destroyed combine harvesters.”

Ukraine is probably prepared for significant losses at the beginning of the counterattack, as breaking the front lines is usually expensive for the attacker.

“When a sufficient number of defensive lines are broken and the attacker gets deep, the situation turns and the defense no longer holds together,” says Huhtinen.

According to him, the main threat is related to whether Ukraine manages to keep its new equipment protected on the way to the break-in points.

“After all, Ukraine does not have a huge amount of expensive Western equipment. It would be important to get it intact for the actual operation for which it was designed.”

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