While Ukraine awaits the delivery of Patriot air defense missiles from the United States, the Russian armed forces are making tremendous progress in the central part of the country. The Ukrainians will not have time to create defensive lines and will therefore not be able to stop the Russian advance into Dnipropetrovsk.
The Russians Deeper Than Ever
Sources within the Ukrainian military seem to confirm the above. Ukrainian General Drapatiy, commander of the Khortitsa group of forces, has ordered the transfer of forces from the Pokrovsk front (a strategic city in Donetsk) to South Donetsk, in order to delay the Russian advance towards Dnipropetrovsk.
This means that Kiev will most likely choose to focus on saving Dnipropetrovsk, leaving behind Pokrovsk, Mirnograd and Chasov Yar, its last major strongholds in Donetsk territory.
This in turn implies the final withdrawal of Ukrainian armed forces from the Donetsk People’s Republic, an area that has been the scene of Russian-Ukrainian fighting for many years. If things develop this way, this region will entirely come under Moscow’s control, and Russia will thus control almost the entire Donbas.
For Ukrainians, the defense of Dnipropetrovsk is a much more important issue than the defense of some -already weakened- fortresses on Donetsk’s southwestern borders. The Dnipropetrovsk region is much more sparsely populated than Donetsk, which means that Russian forces could theoretically capture it much more quickly.
