Since the departure of the troops of the Wagner Group from Bachmut, the Ukrainian army has retaken the city meter by meter, making the most of the changing of the guard. Brigadier General and Professor Han Bouwmeester of the Dutch Defense Academy thinks so.
According to Bouwmeester, the Wagner Group is battle-weary and longs for payback. It also appears to be arriving in the form of another Russian mercenary army, but the relief makes the situation vulnerable, he thinks. “Such redemptions are often chaotic, especially when it comes to loose clubs handing things over to each other,” says Bouwmeester. “That means there could be fault lines in the Russian front line.”
“Such a chaotic relief creates fault lines in the Russian front line”
According to Bouwmeester, these faults are located north of Bachmoet, exactly where Ukraine claims successes. The head of the Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin was already angry about this the day before yesterday, according to Bouwmeester. “He also voiced that criticism for endangering the Russian military,” says Bouwmeester. “It seems that the Wagner Group is a competitor to the Russians, because there is little cooperation.”
American experts and intelligence services therefore call these territorial gains by Ukrainian troops the first steps of the long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Dam
According to Bouwmeester, there may be a connection between the explosion of the Ukrainian Kakhovka dam and other developments on the battlefield. “I have to talk about it carefully, because we still don’t know who’s behind it,” he says. “But if the Ukrainians were to fight back, it would be in their best interests to create some kind of distraction to take public attention and opinion away from Russia.”
Especially since it gives Ukrainian troops the opportunity to carry out their operations in the Donbass without too much attention’.
Source: BNR
Sharon Rock is an author and journalist who writes for 24 News Globe. She has a passion for learning about different cultures and understanding the complexities of the world. With a talent for explaining complex global issues in an accessible and engaging way, Sharon has become a respected voice in the field of world news journalism.
