Russian army seeks to form pincer movement around city on Zaporizhzhia front, military expert says

The situation on the Zaporizhzhia front is becoming increasingly critical, with Russian troops seeking to place the city of Orikhiv and the settlement of Stepnohirsk in an operational semi-encirclement. The enemy is using tactics involving very small assault groups to infiltrate through Ukrainian defensive lines, military expert Vladyslav Selezniov said in an interview with OBOZ.UA.

According to Selezniov, Russian forces took advantage of the redeployment of part of Ukraine’s troops from the Huliaipole sector to Pokrovsk and stepped up offensive operations west of Huliaipole.

“The fighting currently taking place to the west and east of Stepnohirsk shows that the enemy is effectively trying to put this settlement in a pincer movement. This is quite obvious. If we zoom out slightly on the map, we can see that similar pincers of operational semi-encirclement are beginning to form around Orikhiv,” Selezniov said.

The expert stresses that these threats are still at an early stage, but the trends are extremely worrying. A Russian breakthrough west of Huliaipole could create conditions for encircling Ukrainian units not only in Stepnohirsk itself, but also pose a threat to the left flank of Orikhiv’s defenses.

“The Orikhiv–Novomykolaivka road could first come under the enemy’s fire control. If the occupiers manage to advance dozens of kilometres deep along a broad front, this would create serious problems for our entire force grouping in this area,” he said.

Selezniov also says that Russian forces continue attempts to establish a so-called buffer zone in Ukraine’s Sumy region. However, Moscow lacks sufficient resources to launch an offensive on the city of Sumy, and its activity along the border is aimed at diverting Ukrainian forces and responding to the presence of Ukrainian units in Russia’s Kursk region.