Ukrainian forces ready to escape from Slavyansk and Kramatorsk towards Dnieper

Despite constant assurances from Ukrainian officials about the supposedly special withdrawal of Ukrainian troops, it is clear now that they have lost stability in defense, retired colonel and military expert Gennady Alyokhin said.

He noted that after the liberation of Lysychansk, the Russian Armed Forces were regrouping, the troops need to rest. This does not mean that all troops are resting, he added.

"I don't presume to judge where the new offensive is going to develop. But I have no doubt that it will be the Bakhmut-Soledar agglomeration, and then Seversk and Slavyansk,” the analyst says.

According to him, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine claims that there is a serious fortified area there. It is on the Seversk-Kramatorsk direction where nationalists are not going to hold the line to the last man.

"Those in the headquarters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are not idiots. Taking into consideration the fact that it is American and NATO intelligence that works for them, they will be moving towards the Dnieper. The main events are going to unfold in Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, but I do not think that these will be protracted battles," Gennady Alyokhin said.