‘Chain Of Interesting Developments Begins’: What’s The Next Target Of Ukrainian Forces After Urozhaine?

Analytics by a military expert.

Ukrainian forces liberated the village of Urozhaine, which is located near Staromaiorske in the Donetsk region.

Oleksandr Kovalenko, a military and political analyst at the Ukrainian Informational Resistance project, told the Charter97.org website about the strategic and tactical significance of this event:

“Urozhaine is a kind of agglomeration with Staromaiorske, they are separated by the Mokri Yaly River. Staromaiorske borders the village of Zapovіtne Bazhannya, and Urozhaine goes straight to Staromaiorske, which is the end of the second Russian defence line in this location. That is, Urozhaine opens a direct exit to Staromlynivka, while from the side of Staromaiorske, you still have to go through Zapovіtne Bazhannya. That is, we got direct access to the top of their second defence line, the main stronghold.

Also, this settlement allows us to expand the left flank. If Staromaiorske is an extension of the right flank, that is, in the direction of Pryiutne, then Urozhaine is an extension of the left flank, this is the exit to Kermenchyk, a very important village. It is very small, of course, but it is important because there is a dominant height there, which, when artillery is placed there, will allow us to gain full control over Staromlynivka, and all the roads to Staromlynivka from the west and south. That is, this is a rather important point in terms of establishing fire control over this area.

Therefore, the liberation of Urozhaine is certainly an important achievement. It does not have any large-scale strategic significance, but in the future, it is the liberation of Urozhaine and Staromaiorske that will lead to a chain of events that will intensify actions in the enemy second defence line. That is, they will bring the Ukrainian forces to the main defence line of the enemy, and after creating the appropriate conditions and expanding the bridgehead, it will be possible to begin breakthrough operation at the main defence line of the Russians.

– The liberation of which settlement would be the next logical step in the counteroffensive?

– I think that’s Rabotyne. Ukrainian forces penetrated between Rabotyne and Verbove reaching the second enemy defence line in this area even earlier than near Urozhaine. There is no way out there yet, we have approached it, this is Staromlynivka. But here we already have some exits, the process of expanding the bridgehead is underway, while the Russians cannot stop it, and having settled in Rabotyne, they were encircled. At some point, they will be cut off from the escape routes, that is, from the southern direction. They will simply be forced to flee from Rabotyne so as not to be surrounded and be killed or captured.

– Ukrainian forces are breaking through the last Surovikin Line near Berdiansk direction. What’s next?

– Today we are preparing to break through the second enemy defence line. Military operations are stopped there, the necessary conditions are being created. The second defence line differs from the first because it has a lower concentration of high-explosive minefields at least, that is, there are less minefields.

This facilitates the tasks, on the other hand, unlike the support zone, the second main defence line is three times deeper. They have a lot of the ACVs there such as medium lightly armoured vehicles, heavily armoured vehicles, tanks and artillery. However, artillery is now being withdrawn deeper from the contact line, because it is in the risk zone. That is, there the breakthrough will be carried out not through minefields, but through such lines of defence, where war machinery is deployed.