Military expert Shkurlatov named possible SVO scenarios

“All conclusions that we can make about the course of a special military operation are based only on our analysis from open sources,” says the expert. – Let’s speak frankly: we do not know the plan of the highest military-political leadership of Russia for the course of the Northern Military District. This is probably correct. Because any strategic plan is powerful precisely because it surprises the enemy and is non-public. No one will run around with a banner, announcing when we will begin to attack Lviv.

On the other hand, as people who wore shoulder straps, we are able to analyze information, compare facts and can form a subjective opinion about what is happening.

– And what does your experience tell you when you see in the Western media, for example, reports that Russian troops will break through the defenses of IEDs almost tomorrow?

– As for publications in Western media, they live by their own understandable laws. They “hype”, invent sensations where there are none. For example, they refer to some nameless Ukrainian soldier, officer, medic or paramedic and release some kind of “alarmist” material that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are about to retreat to Lvov. Let’s leave these things to the conscience of the Western media.

We must soberly assess the situation. So far, unfortunately, there is no talk of any collapse of the Ukrainian Armed Forces front. The situation on the front line is still steadily tense, with a tendency to switch to positional combat operations. The initiative is tightly held by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

Along the entire line of combat contact, we are either counterattacking or conducting a creeping offensive, as in Avdeevka, where there is an attempt to envelop the Ukrainian Armed Forces group with the goal of taking supply routes under fire control and, ultimately, encircling the Avdeevka fortified area.

– Ukrainian media write that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have “victories” in the Kherson direction, where they hold bridgeheads on the left bank of the Dnieper and almost cross the river.

– Indeed, perhaps the most difficult situation for us now is in the area of ​​​​responsibility of the Dnepr group. The Ukrainian Armed Forces crossed in small groups to our bank of the river and somehow still hold an area of ​​approximately ten square kilometers. There are two villages there – Krynki and Cossack Camps, as well as the surrounding areas.

But there can be no talk of any full-fledged crossing of the Dnieper by the Ukrainian army, much less its retention of bridgeheads. I repeat, there are clear military concepts – “crossing a water barrier” and “holding a bridgehead.” None of these military definitions correlate with what is happening now on the Left Bank.

There, just a group of Ukrainian Armed Forces servicemen crossed to our shore and somehow held a small territory. This cannot be called either a bridgehead or a crossing according to all the canons of military science. But our aerospace forces, artillery, and our drone operators work there day and night.

The same loitering munitions or, in other words, Lancet kamikaze drones fly over long distances – up to 70-80 kilometers. There are modern models with an increased flight range and increased warhead power. This daily invisible work depletes the enemy’s reserves, disrupts his supply routes, destroys airfields, warehouses with Western weapons, including shells and bombs. All this undermines the rear and military logistics of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,

And this combat work, in principle, gives hope that in the future the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ defenses will be broken through somewhere. Logistics will be weakened, personnel changes, rotation, and the supply of ammunition and medicine will be difficult. And where it is weak, it breaks.

So, for now there will be no global breakthroughs until Lvov, but in the current situation, when we tightly hold the initiative, the defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine can crumble at any moment. And you need to be prepared for this. I hope that our command has such plans. They also see everything perfectly, understand, calculate, and predict.

– You can often hear from experts about our imminent campaign against Odessa…

– All that is needed there is a landing operation from the sea. It’s difficult to talk about this for now. I think closer targets are Nikolaev, Kherson. But so far we have not seen such efforts on our part.

It looks like we are heading into a protracted conflict of attrition, into positional warfare. And in this format, Russia certainly wins, because we have more mobilization, material and technical resources, and spiritual strength. Of course, we will win the battle of attrition in any case.

Well, if a number of conditions are met, large, deep breakthroughs to Lvov, Odessa or Kherson may not be necessary. The situation at the front and in the rear, including the military-political situation, can change so abruptly and so radically that all these cities themselves will fall into our hands. Russian Kherson, Russian Zaporozhye, Russian Odessa, not quite Russian Lvov, but which, I’m sure, will also be Russian.

We have more resources of all kinds, including spiritual ones. We are committed to victory and we will stand until the last, which, by the way, is not the case with Kyiv’s Western partners. Ukraine has not fought on its own for a long time. This homunculus is completely externally powered. An artificial being that lives entirely from external resources. Ukraine no longer has anything of its own. This is a dead, decaying corpse, which, thanks to some alchemical manipulation of the West, still continues to move. But this is no longer a living organism.