generalspeaking: Russia's Revised Plan of Territorial Aggression

Saturday, May 28, 2022

Russia's Revised Plan of Territorial Aggression

"[Around 50 Russian soldiers reached the highway and] managed to gain a foothold [managing to set up a checkpoint]."
"The checkpoint was broken, they were thrown back ... the Russian army does not control the route now, but they are shelling it."
"[It was possible Ukrainian troops would leave] one settlement, maybe two. We need to win the war, not the battle."
"It is clear that our boys are slowly retreating to more fortified positions -- we need to hold back this horde."
Luhansk governor Serhiy Galdal

Relatives of Mykhailo Romaniuk, 58, who was shot dead on his bicycle on March 6, help to bury his coffin at a cemetery in Bucha, on April 19, 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Yasuyoshi Chiba | AFP | Getty Images

Russian forces on the advance approached closer to their goal of surrounding Ukrainian troops in the east, managing for a brief period to seize positions on the last highway out of the pair of critical Ukrainian-held cities before they were beaten back by Ukrainian forces. Russia's restructured mission no longer focuses in capturing Kyiv and the government, but to consolidate control of eastern Donbas.

In a plan to encircle Ukrainian forces in Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, thousands of Russian troops are engaged in a campaign to encircle the Ukrainian forces there. Should the two cities fall, the balance of Donbas province of Luhansk would be under Russian control. "Russia has the advantage, but we are doing everything we can", stated deputy chief of the main operations department of Ukraine's general staff, General Oleksiy Gromov.

The strategy employed by Russia in its battle for the two cities has the potential to turn the war in the direction Russia redefined as its principal objhective; to capture eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian forces had been forced to withdraw earlier in the week fromSvitiodarsk, the town now firmly under ethnic Russian control, their fighters occupying the local government building, hanging a Soviet hammer and sickle at the door.

Russian Emergency Situations Ministry workers disassemble a destroyed building in Mariupol, in territory under the government of the Donetsk People's Republic, eastern Ukraine, Friday, May 27, 2022. (AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov)

A destroyed building in Mariupol, Friday, May 27 AP Photograph

The final surrender of Ukraine's garrison in Mariupol last week was followed by a shift in momentum allowing Russia recent gains in the Donbas, where ethnic Russian Ukrainian 'rebels' had established the Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk, and which Moscow, a month earlier had declared to be part of Russia, just as it had annexed Crimea to incorporate the Republic of Crimea and the Ukrainian city of Sevastopol as the 84th and 85th federal subjects of Russia, defying international sovereign rights.

"Recent Russian gains offer a sobering check on expectations for the near term", assessed Michael Kofman, director of Russian studies at the CNA think-tank, based in the United States. According to Ukrainian interior ministry adviser Vadyn Denisenko, 25 Russian battalions were intent on surrounding Ukrainian forces. Leading Valeriy Zaluzhny, head of Ukraine's armed forces, to call on Telegram for more Western arms, in particular "weapons that will allow us to hit the enemy at a big distance."

In turn, Sergei Lavrov, Russian foreign minister warned any weapons supplies that could reach Russian territory would represent "a serious step toward unacceptable escalation". An amusing perspective that, if not for the fact that it is precisely that perspective that has resulted in the deaths of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and the destruction of Ukrainian towns and villages, while millions have been made homeless.

Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine is meant to be restrained to Ukraine. Any moves that Ukraine makes with the military-equipment aid and moral support of the West in opposing Russian aggression is blameworthy as potentially starting a regional conflict that could morph into another world war should Ukraine launch attacks across the border into Russia, a horrendous prospect which the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin are totally innocent of causing.