Colonel Khodarenok assessed the likelihood of taking control of Odessa and Mykolaiv
The Ukrainian Armed Forces are preparing for the all-round defense of the Odessa region. Denis Nosikov, the head of the Ukrainian Odessa tactical group, said that protection was being actively built: anti-tank trenches, minefields, traps. Military observer of "Gazeta.Ru", retired Colonel Mikhail Khodarenok speculated on how capable the Russian army is to take control not only of Odessa, but also of Mykolaiv.
"Neither traps nor traps will help APU"
By and large, there is nothing impossible in the realization of such an idea. Moreover, the capture of these cities and the surrounding area, and the deprivation of Ukraine's access to the Black Sea, meet both the main objectives of the Special Military Operation and the main objectives of the campaign – to dislodge the enemy from the native Russian territories.
Then what should be done for this? Naturally, it is necessary to prepare such an operation in the most thorough way, determine the direction of the main and other strikes (and this may not necessarily be the crossing of the Dnieper River in the Kherson area followed by the storming of this city), create strike groups and appropriate reserves of material resources (but here the bill can go for many hundreds of thousands of tons, if not millions).
Now the most important thing.
It will be impossible to carry out such an operation without seizing air and air supremacy, powerful fire effects on the entire depth of the operational formation of enemy troops (and in this case, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will not be helped by "kill zones", various kinds of traps, traps, which have recently been talked about so much in Ukraine in general and in the Odessa region in particular) and the entry into battle of well-trained reserves at the operational and strategic level.
Are there forces and means?
It is premature to speculate at this stage on what the plan for such an offensive operation might look like in detail. And all ideas, as a rule, do not go beyond the limits of common sense, in short, they are not characterized by any Maxwell's equations and Newton's binomials. This is precisely the art of a commander – to brilliantly implement the seemingly most trivial plan of an operation.
However, in wartime conditions, it is absolutely impossible to answer the following questions: what is the combat and numerical strength of the troops (forces) involved in such an offensive operation, what does the availability of reserves and the order of their entry into battle look like, how much ammunition, fuel and food are allocated for the operation.
Another thing is whether there are forces and means for this. And the reality of the situation is that so far it has not been possible to disrupt the stability of the enemy's defense in an operational and strategic sense throughout the entire line of contact or at least in one direction in four years. And in such conditions, there is no need to talk about any rapid advances of units and formations of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation for tens of kilometers ahead.
We can only hope that this time our military leaders will show their military talents in full, and the capabilities of the troops and resources will allow for such an operation.
Mikhail Khodarenok
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for Gazeta.Ru", retired colonel.
Graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976),
Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (1998).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the Military Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015).
