March will be terribly fierce: experts predicted further war scenarios

Since the beginning of 2023, the Russian occupation army has been storming Bakhmut and Soledar, while trying to restrain the advance of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the North and accumulating reserves in the South.

Correspondent of Facts of the Week Pavlo Vasyliev together with military experts analyses the situation at the front and all possible scenarios of the war.

Soledar is currently the hottest spot on the frontline. The occupants have thrown almost all their forces to capture the city.

Soledar is known for its salt mines and one of the largest salt producers in the world – Artemsil plant. This could be the motive for the owner of PMC Wagner Yevhen Prygozhyn to take control of Soledar.

Serhiy Kuzan, Head of the Ukrainian Center for Security and Cooperation, stated that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are dealing with Wagner’s illegal armed group, whose methods are the same everywhere.

– We are dealing with militants, that is, it is an illegal armed group and all over the world it acted in the same way. They took control of some mining mines, deposits and simply pumped out resources from there. That is money, those millions for Prigozhin, which he actually spends on himself and for this money he does not spare, of course, his fighters, – Kuzan believes.

However, there is another version: Wagner’s men were sent to Soledar as cannon fodder to reduce the influence of Prigozhin himself. Because the smaller his army of prisoners, the less his political influence.

Another city that Russians are trying to capture with all their might is Bakhmut.

Pavlo Lakiychuk, head of security programs at the Center for Global Studies Strategy Twenty One, believes that Russians need Soledar as a step towards Bakhmut.

– “The attempt to capture Soledar is an attempt, in fact, to hang over Bakhmut from the north and partially cut the supply routes, logistics lines that go to Bakhmut,” said Pavlo Lakiychuk.

Soledar had 10 thousand inhabitants before the war. Bakhmut, once home to 70 thousand people, is about 13 km away. However, more important are two highways – M-03 and T-0513, which can supply our defenders of the city. If the Russians manage to cut them, only one road will remain – from Kostiantynivka. It is protected by Klishchiyivka, which is under our control.

Western analysts, in particular at the Institute for the Study of War, believe that the capture of Soledar by the Russians will not give the occupiers control over the logistics of the Armed Forces. In addition, Russia will spend huge human and material resources on this.

Even if the occupiers manage to take Soledar, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will have a place to retreat.

The Ministry of Defense predicts that this winter the Russians may use new tactics in two main directions – in the near future the enemy will try to reach the administrative borders of Donetsk region, and in the future may focus on capturing the left-bank part of Zaporizhzhya region, said Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksiy Hromov.

So, how exactly can the Armed Forces of Ukraine destroy the Kremlin’s plans?

North to the borders

After the successful counteroffensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Kharkiv region, the Ukrainian Defense Forces came close to the strategic highway R-66. Access to this highway means the potential loss of two cities for the Russians: Svatove in the north and Kreminna in the south.

Svatove is the gateway to Starobilsk – the steppe part of Luhansk region is very convenient for rapid offensive actions involving armored vehicles.

Control over Kreminna makes it possible to threaten Russians in the area of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk. With the further prospect of an offensive on Alchevsk.

In addition, with the loss of Kreminna, the entire Soledar-Bakhmut group of Russians is under the threat of encirclement.

According to British intelligence, the occupiers have moved additional units of airborne troops to Kreminna.

Southern roads

The south of Donetsk and Zaporizhzhya regions, at first glance, look like relatively calm areas of the front. In fact, here, as well as in the north – the Armed Forces of Ukraine are trying to keep the strategic initiative and systematically strike at bases, warehouses and places of deployment of the invaders.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine also strike the temporarily occupied left-bank Kherson region.

– And we will continue to do this for at least the next month, creating the preconditions for a frontal offensive on the left bank in Zaporizhzhia region,” Hrabskyi emphasized.

This is what the Russians are afraid of, so they are moving additional forces here.

Almost the entire Zaporizhzhya direction from Vasylivka to Huliaipol is a crucial logistics corridor for the Russians. The roads to the port cities of Mariupol and Berdiansk are open from here. Potentially, this is an opportunity to repeat the Kherson counter-offensive, but on a larger scale.

The second possibility is the access to Melitopol: it threatens the supply routes from the Crimean peninsula. That is, the southern transport corridor of the occupiers will cease to exist.

At the same time, in the south of Donetsk region, Vuhledar provides the same opportunity.

– Any advance of ours in the area of Vuhledar can lead to the fact that we will put under fire control the entire land corridor in this section of the front, and further advance creates preconditions for a breakthrough to the area of Berdiansk, or a breakthrough on the outskirts of Mariupol, – noted military expert Serhiy Hrabskyi.

Exercises in Belarus and a possible invasion

Joint exercises of Putin’s and Lukashenko’s soldiers took place on the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine from Belarus on February 24, 2022.

Another exercise involving combat aircraft is scheduled for Monday.

The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine says that there are no signs of the formation of strike groups in Belarus. Neither joint nor separate Russian ones. On the other hand, such a threat is already distracting our forces from performing tasks in the south and east.

According to Serhiy Kuzan, even a threat or some kind of provocation by reconnaissance and sabotage groups constrains our defense, makes significant forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine constantly keep on the northern direction.

– March will be terribly fierce, – Serhiy Kuzan emphasized.

Therefore, further war scenarios will depend on who is better prepared for future battles.