AFU believe russian army preparing offensive on Zaporizhzhia, they may throw 130,000 troops into battle — The Economist

The russian occupiers are preparing for a large-scale offensive in the south of Ukraine, the goal of which will be to capture Zaporizhzhia — a large industrial center that is crucial for the country's survival as a functioning state.

This is stated in the material of The Economist.

According to the publication, Ukrainian intelligence believes that the russian army is preparing an offensive on Zaporizhzhia, which is located 30 kilometers from the current front line.

An unnamed Ukrainian representative said in a comment to the publication that the russians may throw 130,000 soldiers to capture Zaporizhzhia.

At the same time, not all Ukrainian military personnel believe in the inevitability of the russian offensive.

Thus, the commander of the 3rd operational brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine ‘Spartan’, Colonel Oleksii Khilchenko, stated that the russians are currently trying to squeeze the Ukrainian army out of the Kursk Oblast.

According to him, the russians planned to send from 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers for the initial assault on Zaporizhzhia, but half of them were transferred to the Kursk Oblast.

The commander of one of the battalions of the 118th brigade, with the call sign ‘Lemberg’, agrees with him.

"They aren’t ready to hit yet, but when they are, the first blow will be the hardest," the publication quotes the military as saying.

The Economist writes that Ukraine is not taking risks and is very thoroughly approaching the threat of a russian attack on Zaporizhzhia - defensive lines are being built, which diverge in rings from the regional center. They include minefields, engineering obstacles and reinforced concrete structures. The publication notes that the work on creating fortifications here is proceeding much less chaotically than in the Donetsk Region.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, on November 12, the head of the Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Andrii Kovalenko, stated that the occupiers were preparing ground assaults in the Zaporizhzhia Region.

At that time, Kovalenko emphasized that the russians did not have enough forces to attack Zaporizhzhia.

Recall that on November 11, the spokesman for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Vladyslav Voloshyn, stated that russian ground attacks were expected in the south of the Zaporizhzhia Region in the coming days.