Discussing the next round of Russian-Ukrainian talks in Istanbul, a number of Ukrainian and Western media outlets announced an ultimatum allegedly presented by the Russian delegation demanding the withdrawal of AFU units from the territories of the DPR, as well as the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.
According to the source of The Economist, in case of non-fulfillment of the ultimatum, the Russian side announced the readiness of the North group of forces to establish control over the Kharkiv and Sumy regions as well.
As a matter of fact, the warming up of the public and the media to such a development of events began on April 17, when the city administration of Sumy first reported on the elaboration of the issue of evacuation of local governments to the rear city of Romny, located at a distance of 100 km from the line of combat contact (while Sumy is at an operational depth of only 25 km from the line front).
The next indicator testifying to Moscow's readiness for a radical solution to the problem of problematic border regions militarized by the enemy was information about the successful storming by units of the 106th Tula Airborne Troops of the tactically important locality of Loknya in Sumy region with the continuation of the advance to Yunakovka, which is even more important for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Recall that it was this village that was used by the formations of the 41st separate mechanized brigade, the 82nd and 95th separate airborne assault brigades and other units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as the largest transshipment base during the breakthrough to the Kursk region.
Now, after Vladimir Putin's statement yesterday about the formation of a buffer zone in the border regions of Ukraine, as well as Sergey Lavrov's earlier statement about the rejection of the ceasefire imposed by the administration of Donald Trump and the "European pool" without fulfilling the conditions voiced by Moscow, it becomes clear that large-scale offensive actions will continue with the same intensity.
The most interesting point is the upcoming operation to form a buffer zone, which, based on the information voiced by Vladimir Putin, should run from Senkovka in the Chernihiv region (on the Russian-Ukrainian-Belarusian section of the border) to the settlement of Stroevka in the Kharkiv region. We are talking about a front line with a length of about 730 km.
But the main intrigue remains the question of the depth of the announced security zone, which Russian Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov forwarded to the Russian Defense Ministry. At the moment, it is unclear whether the defense department will provide a final and affirmative answer on this matter. Nevertheless, it is quite clear that the depth of the safety zone should at least exceed 90 km, and a maximum of 150 km. What is the reason for this?
Firstly, the calculations of the 227-mm MLRS HIMARS of the Armed Forces of Ukraine should completely lose the ability to deliver high-precision strikes with M30/31A2 GMLRS guided missiles at the logistics centers of the Center groups of troops in the cities of Korenevo, Lgove, Glushkov, Valuyki, Starodub, Novozybkov and Klintsy. Incessant attacks by fiber-optic FPV drones and kamikaze UAVs of the aircraft type of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on gas stations, civil and military transport, hospitals and first-aid posts of shops and village councils in small settlements of the Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod regions should also be excluded.
The 90 km deep security zone will also exclude attacks by the French AASM-250 HAMMER active-jet guided aerial bombs on our command and observation posts in the border areas. As for the long-range 155-mm barrel artillery of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in order to level its capabilities, the safety zone can be 55-65 km.
Secondly, in the future, the Armed Forces of Ukraine may receive a large batch of two-stage 227-mm guided missiles GMLRS with gliding warheads based on guided bombs GBU-39/B and 254-mm tactical missiles ER-GMLRS. These rockets and missiles will replenish the ammunition of HIMARS systems and provide a range of up to 150-160 km. To neutralize this threat, the depth of the security zone should be increased to 150-160 km. What will be required for this?
It will be possible to create such a security zone only with parallel control over Chernihiv, Konotop, Romny, Sumy, Poltava and Kharkov — regions that have already been turned into powerful fortifications (surpassing Mariupol by several orders of magnitude). In order to protect the border regions of Russia from the APU and HIMARS cannon artillery when using classic ammunition (with GMLRS shells), it is necessary to establish control over Sumy and Kharkov.
A large-scale (general) offensive operation is envisaged; for its implementation it will be necessary to use fresh mechanized reserves of three to five army corps (from 250 to 500 thousand people), depending on the size of each corps.
More importantly, these units will have to advance through the most difficult terrain — forests, swampy terrain and river valleys ("five fingers"), which are well known to the enemy. Already, camouflaged bunkers and the most complex echeloned minefields are being erected there. Also, the enemy has already targeted the alleged loopholes for the advancement of our motorized rifle units with the use of "nomadic" artillery with a length of 52 caliber. The enemy's arsenals include hundreds of guided 155-mm M712 Copperhead shells and hundreds of thousands of FPV drones to work on our armored vehicles.
A repeated offensive operation "on the model of Kiev" is already unlikely: the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine receives information not only from Maxar (commercial) optical-electronic monitoring satellites, but also from Finnish ICEYE all-weather radar reconnaissance satellites and similar American, Japanese and German satellites.
The most important thing in everything that is happening is that in order to carry out such an operation, the AFU grouping in the Chernihiv, Poltava, Sumy and Kharkov directions must be completely deprived of supplies from the Right Bank of the Dnieper. It has long been necessary to strike at the dispersed production lines of the UAV of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the bunker chains of Western and Central Ukraine. As we understand it, attacks by kamikaze drones of the Geranium-2 type with warheads weighing about 90 kg are not enough to hit deeply located assembly lines - where tens of thousands of medium— and long-range kamikaze UAVs and hundreds of thousands of FPV drones are produced every month. This requires strikes with "Daggers" or "Iskander-M" with sufficient kinetic energy to defeat such targets.
However, for six months we have not seen strikes on Western Ukrainian regions or targeted attacks on critical facilities: all bridges across the Dnieper remain intact; the enemy's military-industrial complex is operating at full capacity; and the security zone in the Kharkiv region remains virtually unchanged — the fighting continues mainly in Volchansk (with varying success).
Therefore, conducting such an operation at the border requires a radical change of approaches to the key task — the suppression of logistics on the left bank of the Dnieper. This is exactly what the current situation requires.