Russian army will cling to south of Ukraine, Putin ready to sacrifice mobilized, Ukraine’s General Staff says
Earlier, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation called on Russians to be ready for "difficult decisions" (Photo:REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko)
The Kremlin regime might sacrifice mobilized Russians to ensure the retreat of combat-ready units of the Russian army in the Kherson direction, Oleksiy Hromov, Deputy Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of Ukraine’s General Staff, said during a briefing on Oct. 20.
That’s what the “difficult decisions” that were previously mentioned by Sergey Surovikin, the new commander of the Russian occupation forces in Ukraine, could actually mean, Hromov said.
“We do not rule it out,” Hromov said.
“You understand that they will not withdraw in full if they do so when the troops withdraw. The enemy can withdraw and leave the consсripts to carry out the tasks of preventing the withdrawal of their troops, and move the most combat-capable personnel units in advance to the left bank of the Dnipro river.”
Therefore, the primary task of the Russian troops now is to maintain the front in the Kherson direction in order to ensure their retreat.
“Intelligence data indicate that the primary task for the Russian armed forces in the near future is to hold the front... The enemy plans to solve this task mostly through the first wave of mobilization and by increasing the number of Russian troops on the right bank of the Dnipro river,” Hromov said.
As for the reasons why the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is so desperately clinging to the south of Ukraine, the main one is the land corridor to Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula.
“For Putin’s regime, the southern direction – Kherson, Zaporizhzhya and Mykolaiv – is strategically important from the point of view of preserving the land corridor to Crimea and the water supply of the peninsula,” Hromov said.
In addition, the Russian Federation still hopes to use the region as a springboard to capture Mykolaiv and Odesa oblasts.
Meanwhile, according to the media, fearing an attack by the Ukraine’s Armed Forces in the southern direction, Russian troops are already transferring equipment and personnel to the right bank of the Dnipro river.
Besides, the Kremlin regime already began the evacuation of its puppet governors and other collaborators from Kherson.
A reminder: after the destruction of key crossings across the Dnipro by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Russian troops located in this region found themselves in an extremely vulnerable position due to problems with supply and the inability to organize a large-scale evacuation of their forces.
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