Last I heard, Putin was still willing to let Ukraine hold on to Odessa
Worth noting, Putin tried his best to take Odesa and failed. The people of Odesa fought and kept their freedom. Russia was pushed back across the Dnieper River, and do not seem to have the military technology to cross over a well guarded river.
Russia may have made some initial attempts, but from what I've heard, the real thing is coming soon. Simplicius, a substacker with extensive knowledge of the situation in Ukraine, had this to say today in regards to Odessa:
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But getting back to Zelensky’s warnings of a coming season of offensives, an AFU Major named Valery Prozapas
corroborated these views:
Source:
Россияне не намерены завершать боевые действия в Украине до достижения поставленных целей. Среди них оккупация как минимум четырех крупных городов – Запорожья, Херсона, Николаева и Одессы. Об этом заявил майор ВСУ Валерий Прозапас. Отмечено, что стр
today.ua
=The Russian Federation plans to "occupy" Zaporizhia, Kherson, Nikolaev and Odessa, - Major of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Prozapas
The goal is to connect the Crimean corridor with Transnistria. The Russians are preparing bridgeheads for an offensive, the Major of the Armed Forces of Ukraine noted=
We discussed here long ago that a potential Russian plan for crossing the Dnieper could include first capturing Zaporozhye city, which would allow maintaining a secure bridgehead whether the AFU blows the main Zaporozhye bridges or not. That’s because Zaporozhye has the large Khortytsia isle which spans across the river, that would likely allow much easier pontooning and building of temporary bridge structures than elsewhere on the river.
From the above article:
=It is indicated that Zaporozhye is needed as an outpost, capturing which it will be possible to move south, conveniently crossing the Dnieper. However, this does not mean that the enemy will be able to realize their intentions. According to the analyst, you need to be prepared for the worst and not expect a miracle. And then the invaders will not be able to achieve the desired result.=
Granted, there’s other such islets further south towards Kherson, but they’re all undeveloped and marshy, whereas Khortytsia is developed, with good infrastructural roads, etc.
Russia has recently restarted offensives in this direction, making some of the largest gains of the past weeks of any front. Using
Suriyak’s map, we can see the following:
Virtually everything above that yellow line was just captured in the past week and change. We have footage from the assault on the area indicated by the green circle above:
An interesting episode during yesterday's battle in the Orekhov tactical direction at Sherbaki.
Attacking Russian unit ran into and surprised a Ukrainian APC that didn't open fire and apparently pretended to be out of action.
[video in original]
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Full article:
Putin made some very interesting statements in his meeting with the sailors of the Arkhangelsk nuclear submarine in Murmansk, ones bound to reignite hope in the doomsayer quarters who’ve long believed Putin is looking for any opportunity to ‘concede to the West’.
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