Intelligence indicates that the Russian Sixth Army is advancing in the direction of Kupyansk , just 10 kilometers from the outskirts of the city. The Ukrainian army also immediately said that it had built a huge fortress into the entire city, which would become the second Bakhmut. All indications are that the next turning point in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict may not be in the Slavyansk direction, but on the Osquill River.
[6th Army under the O Group]
Recently, as the fighting in the Bakhmut area ended with the Wagner Group taking full control of the city and the Ukrainian defense forces withdrawing, the Ukrainian army and NATO intelligence agencies have also fallen into busy work.
They need to collect as much strategic deployment intelligence as possible as possible and use this as much as possible to determine the direction of the Russian army's possible offensive in the next phase of the operation. Only in this way can the Ukrainian army quickly put its troops into the upcoming battle in the absence of elite troops and build a defensive line in advance to deal with the offensive of the Russian army.
However, the problem is that after losing the Bakhmut area, the Ukrainian army was directly hit by the Russian army on the eastern front. Although this salient was not very large, it still created a window for the Russian army to attack Slavyansk, Sevlsk, Chasovyar and other places.
[Schematic diagram of Bakhmut's offensive window]
So much so that many Ukrainian intelligence officers are worried that if the Russian army launches another offensive on the eastern front, and they and NATO fail to judge the direction of the main attack in advance, then the most critical situation is that the Ukrainian army may face the dilemma of dividing troops on three fronts.
Of course, as large-scale activities begin to occur in the Russian army on the northern front, Ukrainian intelligence officers may be aware of it. For the Ukrainian army, the most critical situation is not the division of troops on three fronts in the Slavyansk direction, but when the overwhelming majority of people think that the Russian army will continue to launch an offensive on the eastern front, the Russian army on the northern front has already arrived at Kupyansk City.
According to Russian media reports, since the end of last month, the 6th Composite Army belonging to the O cluster began to advance towards Kupyansk in the northeast of the Kharkiv region. At present, it has advanced to the settlement area 10 kilometers outside Kupyansk City, and has engaged in fierce fighting with the Ukrainian army stationed on the outskirts of the city.
[Russian troops shelling Ukrainian troops in the woods on the outskirts of Kupyansk City]
For this offensive of the Russian 6th Army, the preparation of the Ukrainian army is obviously somewhat inadequate. Because from the combat experience of the past 15 months, although the current Ukrainian army has lost a lot of technical weapons and equipment, many front-line reconnaissance units can only rely on the simplest civilian drones and telescopes to reconnoiter the actions of the Russian army.
But after an unknown number of rounds of general mobilization, the strength of the Ukrainian army has reached an unprecedented scale. So much so that when performing front-line reconnaissance missions, the Ukrainian army can make up for the lack of equipment by casting a wide net, so as to achieve the purpose of early warning of the actions of the Russian army.
[Ukrainian scouts killed by the Russian army]
Although this method of physical reconnaissance has caused a lot of losses to the front-line Ukrainian army, it has also allowed them to continue to maintain the front-line intelligence network and prepare early warnings of battles in advance despite the lack of equipment. And the Kiev authorities can also use this battlefield information to win public opinion support for themselves.
However, in this attack, there were few relevant reports on the Ukrainian side, and many news were first exposed by the Russian media. This cannot help but make people wonder whether the Ukrainian army in the Kupyansk direction has a problem of insufficient troops.
After all, in the previous battle of Bakhmut, Ukraine invested a total of 38 brigades and 24 battalions, with a cumulative number of casualties of about 50,000-60,000, and the number of wounded about 60,000-70,000.
【Wagner's opponents】
This is not a small number, especially since the Ukrainian army has already lost hundreds of thousands of people in a series of battles last year. So it is not surprising that Kupyansk on a remote front will have problems with insufficient troops.
Since there may be a shortage of troops in Kupyansk, is it possible for the Russian army to take the city in a short time? Not quite.
Because after the Russian army came to Kupyansk City, the Ukrainian army quickly said that the entire Kupyansk had been turned into a fortress city. The Kiev authorities are sure to turn this place into a second Bakhmut.
In the case that the Wagner Group has withdrawn and repaired, and the Russian regular army units have consciously avoided unnecessary casualties, in the face of the closely defended Kupyansk , the 6th Army will really stop on the outskirts of the city, and then wait for Wagner or the Chechen troops who have returned to the front to take the lead.
Of course, this is based on the premise that the Ukrainian army is really capable of turning Kupyansk into a second Bakhmut. After all, in the first Bakhmutry, the combat units of the Ukrainian army have already lost more than 100,000 people. In this case, will the remaining front-line Ukrainian army still have enough morale to invest in the new meat grinder? Obviously a debatable issue.
Moreover, strategically, Kupyansk is not as valuable as Bakhmut. The latter is more or less a small transport hub and Slavyansk's southeastern gate, while the former is just a city near the border on the upper Osquir River.
【Location of Kupyansk】
If there is any military value here, it is that after the Ukrainian army loses here, the Ukrainian army in the direction of Swato-Klimina will likely fall into a semi-encircled situation. But considering that the Ukrainian army in Swator is already in a situation where it is bombed by the Russian army every day, as long as it is not completely surrounded, then the situation will not be bad.
So from a strategic point of view, whether Kupyansk will become the second turning point in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict after Bakhmut is actually in the hands of the Kiev authorities themselves. If they insist on turning this place into a second Bakhmut, then it is entirely possible that the Russian army will continue to inflict meat grinder-like casualties on the Ukrainian army here. And the Kyiv authorities will further lose their war potential.
On the contrary, if the Ukrainian army chooses to shrink the front, then at least until the Russian army launches an attack on Kharkiv, the Ukrainian army can save troops to deal with a more critical war situation.