An interesting opinion on the current events in the east and the south by the Ukrainian military expert Alex Kovalenko:
Opytne... More than just a village.
Now there is only talk about the return of the AFU to Opytnoe, a small village south of Avdiivka and north of temporarily occupied Donetsk. At the same time, some see this as an operational-tactical achievement, while others predict operations in Donetsk.
But, I would like to draw attention to a slightly different aspect, much more global, covering even more than the combat zone.
This is an experienced village, in which even in the best of times not even a thousand people lived. And for the last 9 years it has been at the very epicenter of the war.
North of Opytne, Avdeevka, which even during the period of “calm” 2015-2022 remained the hottest spot along the entire front line, but which the invaders have still not been able to capture.
Opytne, this is an intermediate springboard to the northern and northwestern sector of Donetsk. But that’s not even the main thing.
As I have repeatedly noted before, the russian occupation forces have lost the ability to conduct large-scale offensive operations along a wide front since the second half of 2022. How many cities have they captured with a population of over a million since August 2022? Not one.
How many regions or districts within regions did they capture? None.
Their only achievement since the second half of 2022 is the small town of Bakhmut, the attack on which was carried out along a narrow front and which they are now progressively losing, under pressure from the AFU. And this is an important point.
The occupiers' defenses in the Zaporozhye triangle Novoprokopovka-Verbovoe-Ocheretuvatoe are sagging. They barely hold in the Staromlinovka area. The south of Bakhmut is cracking. On the left bank of the Kherson region, the gray zone is expanding. Novomayorskoe... Opytne...
The defense is cracking along the entire front line of the occupiers. And this happens in the second half of 2023.
Opytne is not just an indicator of success in a single location, it is an indicator of the depletion and loss of russian defensive functional capabilities, like last year’s offensive ones.