“A thousand cuts” in the Dnieper direction: who is behind the occupiers’ intensification and why the enemy is creating the illusion of a breakthrough.

The enemy is trying to strike simultaneously in different directions  front to stretch out Ukrainian operational reserves and divert the main forces  SOU from the direction of the main attack, namely from Donetsk region.

The occupiers are attempting to exert pressure on the Dnipropetrovsk region from several directions at once, using the “thousand cuts” tactic.  The offensive continues at the junction of the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia regions, and in the Pokrovsk and Velikomykhailivka directions. The enemy’s main goal is to expand military operations into territories not included in the Russian constitution by Putin’s decree.

Recently, Russian and Ukrainian media reported the seizure of several settlements in the Dnipropetrovsk region, but this was subsequently denied by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. 

In particular, the discussion concerned the alleged seizure by Russia of the village of Kalinovskaya in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

As a reminder, on October 2, the DeepState project reported that Russian forces had captured two villages in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Subsequently, the 20th Army Corps reported that the Ukrainian Defense Forces had gained control of the village of Kalinovskoye and that Russia’s advance had been halted.

And already on October 3, the Ukrainian Defense Forces successfully cleared out Russian occupiers in Sosnovka, Khoroshe, Novoselivka, and Snezhnoye in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

Despite a number of successful counterattacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in this direction, the enemy (troops of the 5th, 29th, 36th and parts of the 35th Combined Arms Army/WVA, as well as a number of reinforcement units and formations) continue to advance in most of its sectors. 

On October 13, it was reported that the village of Ternovo in the Dnipropetrovsk region had been occupied.

Over the past 24 hours, the enemy carried out 14 attacks in the areas of the settlements of Filial, Sosnovka, Novoegorovka, Orestopol, Pavlovka, Kalinovskoye and in the direction of Privolye.

 According to military expert and retired Ukrainian Armed Forces Colonel Vladislav Seleznev, the fighting in the Dnipropetrovsk region is part of Russian troops’ tactic of creating so-called sanitary zones along the Ukrainian-Russian border. The intensification of hostilities in the region is linked to Russia’s desire to advance deeper into Ukrainian territory and influence the overall course of the war.

Currently, Russian occupiers are attempting to expand their presence in the Dnipropetrovsk region, but the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has a clear understanding of the situation.

The issue is the redeployment of operational reserves and the minimization of possible breakthroughs by the Russian occupiers. This means that we can now say that the Russian General Staff’s plans to create a broad so-called buffer zone in the Dnipropetrovsk region have failed, just as they did in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions. This further demonstrates that the Ukrainian Defense Forces are successfully employing active defense tactics.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces not only wear down the enemy by inflicting significant losses on personnel and equipment, but also, when necessary, successfully counterattack. And the Russians’ tactics have not changed.

First and foremost, this is terror against the civilian population. And the Dnipropetrovsk region, unfortunately, is no exception. Strikes with FAB rockets and Solntsepyok missiles on populated areas, effectively leaving them in a state of scorched earth.

It’s worth noting that Dnipro has already been the target of precision-guided munitions strikes. Specifically, on October 9, Russia used a Grom-E1 cruise bomb-missile against the city for the first time. The following day, October 10, the occupiers attempted a repeat attack, but two Grom-E1 cruise bomb-missile carriers were successfully shot down by Ukrainian air defense forces in the suburbs. 

As military expert Oleg Zhdanov noted, the Russian army lacks the capability to strike the Dnieper with conventional precision-guided bombs (CGBs) due to their insufficient range. At the same time, the enemy has a limited number of longer-range weapons, such as the Grom-E1 or other similar precision-guided munitions, which also affects the assessment of the overall strategic threat to the region.

It’s noteworthy that the occupation forces’ increased activity in the Dnipropetrovsk region is primarily of informational and political significance. Realizing the impossibility of a military takeover of the Donetsk region, they resort to outright blackmail. They are exploiting the opportunity to expand the theater of military operations to include the Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kharkiv regions.

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