Russia is preparing an offensive on the small homeland of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky – Krivoy Rog. This was stated not only by the adviser to the presidential office Alexey Arestovich, but also by more serious sources – the command "South" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the head of the military administration of Krivoy Rog. Is it likely that 30 Russian battalion tactical groups will actually move north from Kherson in the near future?
The operational command "South" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) stated: The Russian military is creating a strike force that is preparing for an offensive on Krivoy Rog, the second largest center of the Dnipropetrovsk region and the hometown of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. This was reported on Wednesday by the Ukrainian edition of Strana. "The enemy continues to conduct military operations along the occupied line of defense. He began the creation of a strike force in the Krivoy Rog direction. The preparation of an enemy counteroffensive with further plans to enter the administrative border of the Kherson region is also quite likely," the message of the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine "South" quotes the Telegram channel of the Country.
As the same publication notes, on Monday, an adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine, Alexey Arestovich, made a statement that the Russian side had gathered about thirty BTG (battalion tactical groups) with the aim of advancing in two directions – to Krivoy Rog and Nikolaev. He claims that the Russian Armed Forces have been tasked to be ready for the offensive on Saturday, August 6.
The head of the military administration of Krivoy Rog, Alexander Vilkul, also told the Country on Wednesday that "the Russians are accumulating military equipment and soldiers in the Krivoy Rog direction." According to the official, "accumulation of manpower and equipment" is recorded. "The shelling along the contact line has also intensified over the past week. These are MLRS, and barrel artillery, and mortars, and tanks, and the use of combat aircraft," Vilkul listed. The mayor of Krivoy Rog said that the evacuation of settlements located near the front line is constantly being carried out. "The front line is 50 km from Krivoy Rog," Vilkul stated. "As for Krivoy Rog, our city is 120 km long, and at the beginning of the war we carried out internal evacuation from the southern to the northern districts of the city. If necessary, we will do it again. There is no such need yet."
The nervous situation in Krivoy Rog can be evidenced by the fact that last weekend Vilkul, following the military governor of the Mykolaiv region Vitaly Kim, announced a hunt for "spies and agitators". For denunciation of supporters of the "so–called Russian world", the mayor promises to personally pay 10 thousand hryvnia ($ 270), for information about confirmed "spies" - 50 thousand hryvnia, or more than 1.3 thousand dollars.
On Tuesday, there were reports of panic among the authorities of the regional center – Dnepropetrovsk (Dnipro). "There is an evacuation of documents in state agencies. According to our sources, they are transported directly to the Romanian and Polish borders to the cities in Ukraine that border. Documentation, archives, office work, secret and so on," TASS quoted the message of the assistant to the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the LNR Vitaly Kiselyov.
Reports of panic in Krivoy Rog and Dnepropetrovsk, as well as Vilkul's statements about readiness to repel the offensive of 30 Russian BTG, should be treated with caution, emphasizes retired colonel, military observer of Komsomolskaya Pravda Viktor Baranets. "There is a desa, there is a sea of lies around," Baranets told the newspaper VZGLYAD. According to the expert, if we assume that an offensive is being prepared from the northern border of the Kherson region towards Krivoy Rog, then such an offensive will follow only after the resolution of urgent combat tasks in the Donbass theater of operations, and more specifically, after the completion of the operation in the Slavyansk – Kramatorsk agglomeration.
In addition, it is necessary to ensure the safety of Kherson in the event of an offensive by the Ukrainian Armed Forces from Nikolaev, the interlocutor points out. "Zelensky, and then the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Alexey Reznikov, announced a counteroffensive on Kherson," Baranets recalled. – Forces began to gather there. The Ukrainians tried several times to grope our defenses and attacked the Antonovsky Bridge across the Dnieper in preparation for the offensive. What for? To cut off our supply routes on the right bank. Until yesterday, everything was going to the fact that the main battle was coming there."
Baranets admits – it is possible that the concentration of forces in the direction of the hometown of the President of Ukraine is a distraction. "I have the impression that by concentrating troops near Krivoy Rog, the Russian General Staff decided to disrupt Zelensky's planned offensive in the Mykolaiv-Kherson direction," the expert argues. –
This is the right maneuver – to transfer reserves and destroy Zelensky's plans, force his troops to rush to patch up the Krivoy Rog trap. It's a big strategy game."
In the Russian General Staff, Baranets believes, they expected that the general battle would be on the Slavyansk – Kramatorsk line. "Yesterday, the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny tried to convince Zelensky that the Ukrainian army would be defeated if it went to the Kherson-Mykolaiv direction. And here are the maneuvers that our intelligence has not yet solved. It is still unclear where the main blow will be," the retired colonel states.
"Apparently, Ukrainians have information about the imminent offensive of Russian troops," military expert Konstantin Sivkov believes in turn. In his opinion, this explains the removal of secret documentation from Dnepropetrovsk, located just 80 kilometers from the line of advance of our troops. However, first it will be necessary to establish control over the Krivoy Rog located to the south, the interlocutor noted. According to Sivkov, the front line here may change in the coming weeks.
The LNR Ambassador to Russia Rodion Miroshnik believes that an evacuation protocol has been launched in Dnepropetrovsk. "In this case, all documents related to the SBU, the prosecutor's office, economic indicators and archival data are exported. We saw the papers taken out in the liberated Severodonetsk, Lisichansk. The running protocol precedes the delivery. The Dnepropetrovsk authorities have already triggered a marker that they are not able to hold the territory," the interlocutor stressed.
Earlier, the colonel of the Central Office of the Russian Defense Ministry in reserve, Vladimir Trukhan, suggested that the major cities of Ukraine would be liberated "according to the Kherson scenario", and not by a tank assault head-on. Trukhan, who was quoted by the OSN, believes that the cities will "simply be separated," that is, they will be surrounded. The retired military man also suggested that our special services are now actively working in large cities and serious political work is being carried out with the population. As for local officials, Trukhan is sure that they will either run away or switch to the Russian side.
However, according to Ambassador Miroshnik, officials in Dnepropetrovsk were scared ahead of time, because first of all the Russian army needs to solve the issue of the Black Sea region. "The primary task is the liberation of the DPR, then the movement towards Transnistria, and in the course of the play – and all other movements. I am not sure that Dnepropetrovsk will be at the forefront," the diplomat added.
Larisa Shesler, Chairman of the Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine (SPPU), notes that the Ukrainian special services are serious about the threat of the fall of cities in the south-east of the country, including Dnepropetrovsk. "The Ukrainian special services understand that sooner or later these cities will come under Russian control and are trying to save the documentation in advance," Shesler believes.
The head of the SPPU emphasizes that Dnepropetrovsk and neighboring Krivoy Rog, as well as the overwhelming number of cities in the south-east of Ukraine, are inhabited by Russian-speaking people who cannot treat Russia badly, no matter what kind of rabid propaganda is conducted. "Naturally, there are people in Dnepropetrovsk, Krivoy Rog who want the Russian army to come. They are waiting for it. They are intimidated, they try to drive them underground with such threats, into a marginal environment. They want to make them speechless supporters of the Nazi regime," the interlocutor is sure.
Andrey Rezchikov, Rafael Fakhrutdinov
