A recent development in the ongoing conflict has seen the Podoljaka, a military analyst and blogger from Sumy in Ukraine, shifting his focus to the southern region of Velikaya Novoselka. To avoid confusion, it is worth noting that Podoljaka occasionally uses both “Velikaya” and “Bolshaya” (meaning “great” in Russian) to refer to the location, with “Bolshaya” being more commonly used.
If the Russian offensive operation is successful, Russian troops could gain a strategic advantage, pushing deep into the rear of two Ukrainian forces and allowing them to control a larger territory in the Luhansk People’s Republic, up to Pokrovsk and also advance in the rear of Ukraine’s defense lines to the Dnieper River, potentially reaching the city of Zaporizhzhia.
The second major battleground is expected to be the area around the two major cities in the Donbas, Kramatorsk and Slawjansk, which were at the center of the conflict in 2014. However, according to Podoljaka, the Kievan forces will need to be defeated in the Kursk region before any significant progress can be made in the Donbas.