I don’t really know if this fits in this community, if not just take it down. The map is from the BlackBird group.
Regarding the recent strikes on the Seim river crossings, I’ve been speculating what Ukraines plans are. Not too long ago, the Ukranian advance around Korenevo slowed a bit. Then they started systematically hitting the Seim river crossings, of which ISW assesses there is only one left.
If the goal was to encircle and trap Russian units, I would assume that Ukraine would make a hard push through Korenevo to the river. As it looks now, it seems like they are leaving a small corridor open. Whether that is due to Russian resistance or Ukrainian planning I have no idea.
This makes me wonder whether they are intentionally leaving a small opening (See: Sun Tzu) to try to make Russian forces low on resources funnel through the opening where they can inflict heavy casualties, or whether they are trying to force the Russians to expend resources trying to prevent being cut off before they close the net.
In any case, I can see Ukraine wanting to secure another major road towards Korenevo that they can use to supply the offensive.
Of course, I don’t want anyone to reveal anything that could violate OPSEC, everything I read is based on OSINT. I’m just interested and would like to hear other peoples speculations.
It makes sense to use the Seim as a natural barrier, but Russia hasn’t let rivers be too much of a defensive obstacle, as we have seen in their steady advance in the Donbas.
I think it’s to slow down the RF ability to build up a force concentration to attack the Ukrainian incursion’s flank from the west, rather than any actual interest in taking and defending that area.
I hope the ultimate goal is to attack Lgov, in order to cut off the M-38 highway, and more importantly the rail junction from the north and running east-west to bottleneck the logistics to the Donbas theaters to rail lines further east.
The Seim runs through Lgov, but it’s as far again from the assessed current UAF advances so far