It remains to put a "lid" on the "cauldron" near Severodonetsk and Lisichansk

By the evening of May 26, Russian and, importantly, Ukrainian sources reported that the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation had taken control of the settlement of Krasny Liman. This result is intermediate, but of great tactical importance in the current situation.

The UAF grouping in Severodonetsk and Lisichansk, where there are at least 4,000-5,000 Ukrainian soldiers, is thus already blocked from three sides, and the only way out remains in the west. Having taken Krasny Liman, Z troops thereby took control of one of the two roads along which it is possible to supply the Ukrainian group sitting in the “lidless cauldron".

The second route, going from Slavyansk through Bakhmut, Soledar and Berestovoye, follows the line of combat collision for a considerable length, and is located in the immediate area of destruction of a variety of weapons of the allied forces. Uninterrupted supply in such conditions is hardly worth counting on.

Thus, the group occupying Severodonetsk and Lisichansk has two options. The first one is completely joyless – to hold positions and in a couple of weeks (at best) repeat the fate of the "Azov inmates". The second is to retreat to the west to Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, thereby occupying a new line of defence and winning the Kiev regime up to a month of time.

Accordingly, the allied forces have a task dictated by the plan of "Operation Z". If it consists in the encirclement and defeat of the Ukrainian grouping, then it is necessary to take Slavyansk and Kramatorsk in a short time. An alternative would be the withdrawal of the UAF group from Severodonetsk and Lisichansk, its connection with units in Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, as a result of which the allied forces will have to crack this defensive line already.

The good news is that one way or another, one of the original missions of Operation Z will be completed - the territory of the Lugansk People's Republic will be liberated. The bad news is that the Ukrainian side has a temporary bonus, which will be used to the maximum in terms of saturation of the grouping in Slavyansk and Kramatorsk.

It also cannot be ruled out that the intention of the Ukrainian command – or, more precisely, the collective Western military think tank – is to lure the allied forces deeper into the territory of Ukraine with attempts to counterattack from Kharkov.

The idea of a counter strike from the Chernigov-Sumy direction to the territory of Russia itself may arise. The shelling of the border regions of the Kursk and Belgorod regions has already become routine, which means that the UAF may well try to build on this success.

The gambit theory is supported by the fact that the Ukrainian formations surrendered Krasny Liman without a fight. Of course, this can be explained by the transition of the demoralisation of the Ukrainian army into a qualitatively worse stage, at which the military simply scatter.

Several more video messages from members of Ukrainian units appeared online. They complain about the impossibility of fighting at the current level of supply. However, the very fact of such a gift - surrendering without a fight the second important settlement; Svetlodarsk was previously taken almost without problems - should arouse suspicion in any military person. Moreover, the messages of the Kiev speakers regarding the flight from Krasny Liman were strikingly complimentary towards the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

Thus, one of the main military speakers of Kiev, Aleksey Arestovich, accompanied the message about the loss of Krasny Liman with remarks about "talented Russian commanders", positive reviews about the operational management and skills of the Russian army. Such statements, to put it mildly, are not peculiar to Ukrainian propagandists, which should lead to certain thoughts.

In any case, in the coming weeks or even days, the status of the task of liberating the territory of the LPR will become clear. It is unlikely that the Ukrainian forces will be able to maintain the "fog of war" for a long time without revealing the essence of their plan.

In other areas of the special military operation, the situation as a whole was not very new. In the already traditional statistics of successful missile strikes, it is worth mentioning separately the strike on the Dnieper’s Nikolaev region, where the Ukrainian centre for electronic intelligence, including 15 foreign specialists, was destroyed. Of interest is the downed Ukrainian military transport plane in the area of Kremidovka, Odessa region, clearly hinting that the enemy is intensively preparing lines in major cities.

It cannot be ruled out that the UAF will try to deliver a relatively powerful counterattack. There are two options for such a strike: the combined actions of the "Kharkov" and "Slavyansk-Kramatorsk" enemy groups, or an attempt to attack the Kherson region at the expense of reserves accumulated in Odessa and Nikolaev.