2023-06-23 00:37:00
What is that goal? kyiv has not said so publicly, but the US media and think tanks of Washington agree that the main goals are focused on break the so-called “land bridge” between Crimea and Russian mainland territory in the regions of Zaporozhie and Jerson, blockade the peninsula and proceed with deeper attacks into the interior of the Eurasian country.
For now, the offensive seems to have failed, with Ukrainian forces losing hundreds of troops and dozens of armored vehicles daily. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently reported that losses reached 186 heavy tanks and 418 armored vehicles.
Beyond the bravery and determination of the Russian forces, the so-called “The Surovikin Line” he has been credited with preventing an advance by Zelensky’s troops. The “Surovikin Line” was a term first used derisively by British media in late 2022, referring to the construction of defensive positions under the guidance of Even Sergei Surovikthe Russian general who served as the commander of the Joint Forces Group in the Zone of the Special Military Operation between October 2022 and January 2023.
This 56-year-old career soldier has achieved close to 40 years of service in the Soviet and Russian militiasand is commander-in-chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces since 2017. A veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, where he served as a special forces commando. He also served as a commander during the second armed conflict in Chechnya in the 2000s, and in Syria in the 2010s, where his leadership of Russian forces was credited with helping turn the tide against a cacophony of Western-backed jihadist militias.
Surovikin’s efficiency and success on the battlefield led the Western media to smear him with the cartoonish nickname “General Armageddon”, allegedly for his “brutal tactics” and his “hard-line, unorthodox approach to waging war.”
For obvious reasons, the Russian military has not been quick to provide details on exactly how its defensive positions are made up. However, media and analysts indicate that the defensive lines consist of a complex multi-tiered network of infantry trenchesanti-personnel and anti-tank land mines, anti-tank “dragon’s teeth” (meter-high concrete structures designed to slow the advance of armored vehicles), as well as raised land berms to protect military equipment.
The defensive lines, which run for 2,000 kilometers between Kherson, Zaporozhye, as well as Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, and the regions bordering Ukraine to the north, are partially visible to military planners in Kiev thanks to the navy. of NATO satellites monitoring the situation on the battlefield.
But kyiv’s ability to destroy this infrastructure is limited by several factors:
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