The Allied forces began to advance in the Mykolaiv direction – in that sector of the front, which had previously rarely been included in combat reports. It is reported about the offensive and defeat of the AFU positions both along the Black Sea and in the steppe areas. A number of experts suggest that a springboard has already been created for the offensive on Nikolaev and then on to Odessa. But there is an opinion that the troops near Nikolayev are solving a different tactical task.On Tuesday, the Russian Armed Forces, with the support of the people's militia of the DPR and LPR, launched offensive actions from Kherson, liberated in early March, in the direction of the Mykolaiv region.
This conclusion can be drawn from the messages in the official Telegram channel of the Ministry of Defense.
Offensive actions in the area of Alexandrovka (a settlement in the Kherson region, on the shore of the Dnieper Bay of the Black Sea, 70 kilometers west of Kherson) led to the destruction of a unit of the 28th mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the withdrawal of allied forces to the administrative border of the neighboring Mykolaiv region. "Control has been established over the territory of the Mykolaiv region with an area of 12 square kilometers," the Ministry of Defense said in a statement.
At the same time, it became known about active actions on the territory of the Mykolaiv region itself – allied troops destroyed several warehouses of rocket and artillery weapons and ammunition near the village of Bereznegovatoye (in the east of the region, a hundred kilometers from Mykolaiv), as well as a radar station for detecting low-altitude targets near Dymovsky village 70 km north of the regional center.
On Monday, there were reports of a fire strike on the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the area of Luparevo village at the mouth of the Southern Bug, northwest of the above–mentioned Alexandrovka. Here, as a result of an attack on the location of the 28th mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Russian military destroyed more than 50 nationalists, as well as seven units of armored and special vehicles. In the nearby village of Limany, a platoon of large-caliber towed guns "Hyacinth-B" was suppressed. In addition, a warehouse of rocket and artillery weapons and ammunition was destroyed near the village of Pervomaiske - already in the immediate vicinity of Nikolaev, to the east of the city. We should add that last week the same 28th Ukrainian brigade suffered losses near the village of Posad-Pokrovskoye on the border of the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions - about 60 nationalists and eight units of special automotive equipment were destroyed by an army aviation strike of the VKS.
If we summarize the incoming information from the south-eastern districts of the Mykolaiv region, we can conclude that now Russia has actually occupied a bridgehead on the right bank of the Ingulets River (the right tributary of the Dnieper) and now has the opportunity to develop an offensive on Mykolaiv, believes Larisa Shesler, chairman of the Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine, a former deputy of the Mykolaiv Regional Council.
"Nikolaev is a very important point on the line of hostilities. Large forces of the Ukrainian army are now concentrated there. The settlements of Alexandrovka and Blagodatnoye, which have already been occupied by Russian troops, are located north of Nikolaev, not far from Snigirevka, the district center of the Mykolaiv region, which the Russian Armed Forces have been controlling since the end of March. In general, the Snigirevsky district is constantly being shelled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces," Shesler said.
According to the interlocutor, after the occupation of the bridgehead on the right bank of Ingulets, "from there you can confidently develop an offensive towards Nikolaev." Moreover, after the village of Blagodatnoye, located to the west of Snigirevka, there are no large settlements in the direction of Mykolaiv, Shesler pointed out. In her opinion, after the capture of Nikolaev, the road to Odessa will open for Russia.
The capture of Mykolaiv will mean the cessation of attacks coming from here on the city of Kherson, on the strategically important Antonovsky Bridge across the Dnieper, on Energodar in the Zaporozhye region and the Zaporozhye NPP, emphasizes Shesler. In addition, the interlocutor believes, the liberated Nikolaev can become part of a hypothetical security belt from Mariupol to Transnistria – which, among other things, will protect Crimea from the constant threat of Ukrainian shelling.
Military expert Mikhail Onufrienko has a different opinion. There is no question of storming the regional capital – the city of Nikolaev, he told the newspaper VZGLYAD. According to his assessment, the actions of Russian troops primarily prevent attempts by a large group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, concentrated in the area of Nikolaev, to develop an offensive on Kherson. "To counteract this, Russian troops were engaged in the local destruction of enemy units located along the Ingulets River," Onufrienko believes. – In recent days, the paratroopers of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have launched an offensive on the villages of Blagodatnoye and Partizanskoye. The advance here is small – about three kilometers per week, but the main thing here is to pull the enemy apart so that he throws reinforcements to these areas, losing the opportunity to organize a large-scale counteroffensive. It is this task that we are solving by attacking the Mykolaiv region."
According to Onufrienko, the advance of allied forces in the region may be quite slow. "The peculiarities of the Mykolaiv region consist in the small shoulder of the delivery of military-technical reinforcements and manpower for the Armed Forces of Ukraine from all over the right bank of Ukraine," the analyst said.
For his part, Doctor of Military Sciences Konstantin Sivkov believes that the activation in the Kherson-Mykolaiv direction plays the role of a maneuver distracting enemy forces. "Russia is showing a classic technique of operational military art," Sivkov emphasizes. – Now the advance of the Russian Armed Forces in the Donbass has stopped in the main direction, in the area of Slavyansk, due to the fact that the AFU is constantly pulling additional forces there. Therefore, Moscow decided to strike in the weaker Ukrainian direction – in the Mykolaiv region." According to Sivkov, this blow solves several tasks at once: firstly, a favorable situation is created for our advance deep into the Mykolaiv direction, and secondly, the AFU will transfer forces here from near Slavyansk.
The third advantage for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, according to him, is the fact that Ukrainian military equipment being transferred to the Mykolaiv direction will become a convenient target for Russian aviation and artillery. "As for the terrain features in the Mykolaiv region, there is a fairly dense residential development, so the promotion will develop slowly – bypassing settlements as much as possible," the interlocutor predicts.
Earlier, Sivkov pointed out that one of the priority goals of a possible offensive in the Mykolaiv region could be control over the South Ukrainian NPP (a nuclear power plant located on the banks of the Southern Bug) and the port city of Ochakov in the Dnieper-Bug estuary.
Rafael Fakhrutdinov, Alyona Zadorozhnaya
