Recently, the rumored "Kharkov offensive" has finally begun, and the "battle" is still quite large; However, there are also a lot of various news, and the mixture of truth and falsehood is confusing.
In the midst of the chaos, we found that the offensive was led by the newly formed "Northern Cluster" of the Russian army, and the commander was an old acquaintance, General Lapin, whose new position is still the commander of the newly split Leningrad Military District.
Obviously, the "Northern Cluster" that appeared on the Russian-Ukrainian border was formed on the basis of the team of the Leningrad Military District, which is basically not much different from the combat cluster formed on the basis of the large military district on the battlefield in Ukraine.
The formation of a new cluster naturally undertakes the tasks of a new operational direction; Due to the importance of Kharkiv, the Russian army launched this wave of offensive at this special point in time, which naturally aroused strong public concern.
Since the direction and squad are very clear, where do the soldiers and horses come from?
Theoretically speaking, the units under the jurisdiction of the Leningrad Military District must have been split from the former Western Military District, and in the information that has been leaked so far, its theoretical establishment should include: the 6th Army of the Army, the 11th Army of the Baltic Fleet, the 14th Army of the Northern Fleet, and the newly formed 44th Army.
If all these units are formed and in place, then the northern cluster, which is formed on the basis of the Leningrad Military District, should also have a large number of field troops.
But the problem now is that the 6th Army is in the Kupyansk direction, and the 14th Army is in Kherson and Artemsk, respectively, and what can really be put in place now is the new troops, as well as some units drawn from the 6th Army and the 11th Army.
In addition, the two ace units under the jurisdiction of the 1st Guards Tank Army of the Russian army, the 2nd Guards Motor Infantry Division and the 4th Guards Tank Division, are not all in the western cluster mission area at present, and there are still many units stationed in the country, which can theoretically be used by the northern cluster.
However, even taking into account these units, there are not too many main battle units under the jurisdiction of the northern cluster formation, and a considerable part of them are newly built and expanded units.
At present, it is more commonly said that the size of the northern cluster is about 50,000 troops, and if it is really the main field force that can be used for attack and defense can have this number, then it is okay, after all, according to the situation of the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, 50,000 field troops are enough to launch a campaign-level offensive.
But the key is that the 50,000 people in Laping's hands are most likely all the troops on the border line of the three northern states that are incorporated into the northern cluster, and a large number of them are still squatting troops, and it does not have enough mobile troops.
Of course, by "sufficient" we do not mean border defense, but a large-scale offensive with the city of Kharkiv as the ultimate goal.
After all, Kharkiv is not a small village, but a large city with a population of 150 before the war, and the actual permanent population may reach 2 million; Even today, more than two years after the war, there are still 1.3 million people in Kharkiv, of which about 1 million are locals, and the remaining 300,000 have fled the war zone.
In the Russian-Ukrainian war, the Russian army has not yet had a precedent for attacking a city of this magnitude.
Mariupol, the largest city taken by the Russian army, is only one-third of the size of Kharkiv, and the combined volume of all the "big cities" in the current Donbas theater is only half the size of Kharkiv.
Although the current northern cluster of the Russian army has made considerable progress on the border line, it has not touched the real defense line of the Ukrainian army, and it has not yet taken key urban strongholds.
If the Russian army wants to go straight to the city of Kharkiv, it needs to further clean up the border area, and then break through the multiple lines of defense of the Ukrainian army, and then it can rush to the city of Kharkiv, and this process is impossible to complete in a short time.
Therefore, for the current offensive operations of the Russian army in Kharkiv, it is more likely to create a border security zone and attract and mobilize the Ukrainian army, while the possibility of directly breaking through the city of Kharkiv is relatively small.