Girkin writes:
Perhaps, now we can reliably say that the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine began 5-6 days ago. It began with an auxiliary strike west of Wuhledar in the Volnovakha direction. At the same time, attacks-demonstrations (with tactical purposes) were launched on the Donetsk front - in the Vodiane-Opytnoe area, tactical attacks are being made in the Bakhmut area. Well, the day before yesterday, an offensive was launched in the main direction - in the Orekhov region towards Melitopol. To date: the auxiliary attacks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have not led to any results, except for heavy losses. We failed to take Novodonetskoye, in the rest of the sectors - at best, small tactical successes, measured in a few kilometers of the "gray zone" and several hundred meters deep in our forward positions. Near Donetsk - no change. Under Bakhmut - small (and insignificant from all points of view) tactical advances of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. On the main axis, the enemy goes "for broke", stubbornly attacking our positions in order to break through the front. At the moment - after a day of continuous fighting, it is indirectly known about minor penetrations, there are no breakthroughs. And there are big losses. A significant part of them are in minefields in the "gray zone" and from our air strikes there. It suddenly became clear that our aviation was ready precisely for such a development of events as a massive night attack, it was able to fire guided missiles at night no worse than during the day, and prepared in advance for an enemy attack. Now the "partners" have two options: stop burning their reserves in frontal attacks, crawl back and regroup (in fact, curtail the offensive at the very beginning) or still try - using the significant superiority created in the number of people and line units - to first push through the front , and then try to break through it (as they did last year near Davydov Brod in the Kherson region). I assume that the enemy will not stop the attacks that have been launched, will not change plans on the go, and we will have a long bloody battle. Depending on the success of the enemy, it can last from several days (4-5) to 2-3 weeks. If the enemy manages to achieve at least minimally encouraging successes, he will beat and beat in the hope of a breakthrough. No - attacks will gradually fade as losses increase. Once again, I state that the obviousness of the direction of the main attacks of the enemy did not allow him to achieve operational surprise, just as it was not possible to divert reserves to secondary directions and send them (despite the hysteria of Prigozhin and Co., who seemed to "play along" with partners) to Belgorodskoe a direction to repel the sorties of the DRG (which does not mean, of course, that it was impossible to repel them there much more effectively without attracting reserves from the Southern Front). Our counter-offensive after repelling an enemy offensive is not to be expected even in the most optimistic scenario - the enemy, even after the defeat, will have a serious superiority in manpower and the number of combined arms formations. Without broad mobilization and the creation of new armies and corps (an additional 300,000 military personnel - at least more or less normally trained, armed and equipped) - the RF Armed Forces will not be able to successfully attack with the strategic goals of defeating the enemy.