Recently, Russian invaders have resumed offensive operations on the border of the Donetsk and Zaporizhia regions, achieving certain tactical successes, but so far this is not part of large-scale operational offensive actions.
Experts from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) report this.
Russian offensive actions in the Donetsk and Zaporizhia regions: what is known
ISW recalled that on October 12 and 13 it became known that units of the occupation forces began an assault near Levadnoye (southwest of Velyka Novosyolka) and broke through the defenses Ukraine.
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According to a Ukrainian military observer, the enemy reached the outskirts of Levadnoye and advanced towards Novodarovka.
At the same time, Russian military bloggers claimed that Russian soldiers allegedly captured Levadnoye and advanced towards the southern outskirts of Novodarovka, but ISW did not find confirmation of these Russian statements.
Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War believe that these tactical successes of the Russian Federation are not the result of a sudden or unexpected Russian breakthrough.
ISW experts recalled that earlier this month, Russian troops became more active on a section of the front in the west of the Zaporizhia region in the area of Kamenskoye (south of Stepnogorsk). However, this activity has been limited and has so far resulted in only minor tactical successes.
It is noted that it is possible that the Russian invaders are becoming more active in less active areas of the front in southern Ukraine in order to distract the attention of Ukrainian troops from Russia's priority offensive operations in the Donetsk region and to consolidate Ukrainian forces on the front in southern Ukraine and prevent the Ukrainian Armed Forces from redeploying their forces to the Donetsk region.
However, analysts at the Institute for the Study of War have not recorded any reports of Russian forces conducting large-scale attacks on the border of the Donetsk and Zaporizhia regions.
There are also no signs of accumulation of manpower and resources for a large-scale offensive comparable to Russia's operations in the east Ukraine.
At the same time, the occupation forces, on the contrary, redeployed forces that were previously located in the area of the border of Donetsk and Zaporizhia regions and in other places in the south of Ukraine in order to respond to the operation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation.
