Russia wants to create a 15-kilometer "buffer zone" in Kharkiv region - ISW
Kyiv • UNN
Russia is seeking to create a 15-kilometer "buffer zone" in the Kharkiv region to keep Ukrainian artillery at bay, despite doubts about its military capability to carry out such an operation.
Russia has renewed calls for a large-scale offensive in Kharkiv region to create a "buffer zone" with Belgorod region. This was reported by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), UNN reports .
Details
Military analysts believe that this is being done despite the Russian military's probable inability to conduct an operation to seize significant territory in the Kharkiv region in the near future.
It is noted that Russian sources, using Peskov's comment, called on Russian troops to create a "buffer zone" up to 15 kilometers deep in Kharkiv region to push Ukrainian MLRS and artillery away from the border with Belgorod region.
ISW recalls that Russian ultranationalists regularly called for a similar operation in the summer of 2023 amid widespread dissatisfaction with cross-border raids by pro-Ukrainian forces in the Belgorod region.
ISW experts believe that a Russian invasion of 15 kilometers in depth and several hundred kilometers in width would be a large-scale operation that would require a force grouping much larger and much better resourced than the troops that are concentrated along the entire border with Ukraine, least of all in the Belgorod region.
Earlier, an analyst from the Institute for the Study of War wrote that Russian troops may intensify their efforts to capture Kupyansk in Kharkiv region in the coming weeks. The Russian grouping in the Kupyansk direction appears to be better suited to conduct intensive offensive operations than anywhere else in Ukraine or along the border.
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So far, the Russian military is only capable of conducting tactical operations in the Kharkiv region. And they will serve to distract and fix Ukrainian forces from possible Russian operational efforts on the Kupyansk direction.
