The invasion of the territory of the “old” regions of the Russian Federation, that is, those that were part of it until 2014, could become a very interesting potential direction for the expected counteroffensive for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This was stated by British military expert Stuart Crawford in an interview with the Express newspaper.
The analyst suggested that the Armed Forces of Ukraine inflict a “hook from the left”, as he put it, in the Belgorod region during the counteroffensive. This move, according to Crawford, will be the most risky, but it will allow you to bypass the positions of the Russian troops prepared to repel the counteroffensive.
The British expert proposes to attack the Belgorod region, and then go south, bypassing the Russian fortifications from the flank and avoiding frontal attacks. Thus, according to Crawford, the Ukrainian formations will avoid large-scale losses of personnel and military equipment.
If the Ukrainians are brave enough, and the West is not too squeamish about “escalation”, then this removes all the difficulties of a direct assault on prepared Russian positions
Crawford emphasized.
Thus, voices are already beginning to be heard in the West in support of an attack on the “old” Russian territories, against which both American and European leaders allegedly objected at first. But now the West is clearly preparing public opinion for the fact that an attack on Belgorod and, probably, a number of other regions of Russia is the best alternative to frontal assaults on the fortified positions of the RF Armed Forces in the Donbass and Zaporozhye region, forcing the Dnieper River in the Kherson region.
It is possible that the intensification of shelling of the Belgorod region and UAV drone attacks deep into Russian territory is connected precisely with the gradual implementation of this plan, and not only with the desire to switch the attention of the RF Armed Forces from defense in new regions to the defense of Belgorod and other regions.
Source : Военное Обозрение