Ukraine To Stay On Offensive: Next AFU Target After Kherson Announced
- 12.11.2022, 11:54
The Ukrainian army is challenging the Kremlin.
Ukraine does not show a desire for a truce, and intends to continue the liberation of territories by military means. Probably, after Kherson, the Armed Forces of Ukraine can prepare for an offensive through the Zaporizhzhia region in the direction of Melitopol.
This has been reported by The New York Times.
“Many analysts and diplomats have suggested there could be a pause in major combat, and even peace talks, over the winter, but after pushing the Russians out of Kherson, Ukraine has no desire to stop,” the publication writes.
The NYT notes that, given the recent events, the Ukrainian forces “give no sign of stopping their offensives for the winter”, or allowing the war to settle into a stalemate.
Referring to the hints from troops on the ground, and volunteers close to them, the NYT claims that the Ukrainians are preparing for a new land offensive between those two fronts, south through the Zaporizhzhia region toward Melitopol.
The NYT writes that the Ukrainian forces can be “challenging Russia’s hold on the entire southern area” that it seized in the invasion that began in February.
The journalists quote a Senior Lieutenant, commander of an anti-tank unit defending the embattled town of Bakhmut, in the eastern Donbas region.
“The logic of war is not to pause and somehow continue to move forward,” said “I think there will be counterattacks in other directions, so that the enemy does not have time to transfer reserves and block strikes,” the military man said.
Herein, the Western experts are already predicting that Ukraine will make further gains in the south, as Russian morale and organization unravel.
Other analysts are more cautious. They said they expected both sides to take an operational pause because of the difficulty of muddy, wet and cold conditions, and because the fighting in Kherson had been extremely debilitating.
Anyway, the experts believe that full-scale fighting would resume in the spring.
“Ukraine’s next targets would most likely be either in the direction of Melitopol in the south or in the east, continuing the offensive that routed Russian forces from the Kharkiv region, to recapture the town of Svatove in the Luhansk region, which has been the focus of fighting for the past month,” the publication quotes the experts.
One thing analysts agree on is that, whether or not there is a pause, the next stage will again be extremely brutal.
Important to note, yesterday it became known that Kherson was returning under the control of Ukrainian troops, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine have already entered the city.