The Russian spring and summer offensives cannot be considered stopped. The aggressor will launch a new attack.
Russia is preparing a major strike in the Pokrovsky direction
Military expert Mykhailo Zhirokhov expressed this opinion. He said the main Russian forces still have not entered the battle.
The Russians have not yet thrown either the second or the third echelon into battle, and it obviously exists and is concentrated in the border areas. And there are still some points that make it possible to talk about the fact that this attack on Kharkiv Oblast can be purely theoretically a distraction, and the Russians can prepare the main attack of the summer campaign in a completely different direction, — noted Zhyrokhov.
As the expert explained, if the Russians had not been stopped in the Kharkiv region, they would have thrown these additional forces and resources there, but now the occupiers will look for simpler ways.
I think that our General Staff has both defensive and counteroffensive plans. And, most likely, the main direction will still be Pokrovsk, the Donetsk direction. Obviously, our command also understands this, because near Kramatorsk, near Sloviansk, fortifications are being dug at a very powerful pace — in the last year there have not been as many as are being dug up in one week, — the expert added.
The Russian offensive in the Kharkiv region
On May 10, Russia intensified its offensive in the Kharkiv region. The enemy managed to capture some border settlements.
On May 23, the AFU Commander-in-Chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, reported that two weeks after Russian troops crossed the border in the Kharkiv region to open a new front, the offensive stopped in the city of Vovchansk, less than 10 kilometres south of the border. In Lyptsi, from the southern to the west, according to him, in the Kharkiv region, the Russians suffered significant losses and got stuck in street battles for Vovchansk.
The AFU Commander-in-chief noted that fighting continues in the forest massif north of the city in the Kupyansk direction. The Institute for the Study of War was informed that the Armed Forces of Ukraine had recaptured part of the territories in the Kharkiv region.
