The main reason for the Russian push seems to push ukranian lines far away from Belgorod (yesterday Belgorod was again bombed hard).l, specially in the background of new HIMARS deliveries and so on.
However I don’t know why people is so sure that Russia is not able to encircle Kharkov. It will not happen in a day, but as far as I can see the Ukrainian army currently is basically unable to hold fortified positions in Donbass.
I don’t see how people think that they are going to be able to hold ground in a far less fortified Kharkov area agains a newly introducing Russian force of 50-100 thousand soldiers.
To appropriately defend Kharkov they would need to divert resources that they don’t have from the central donbass area.
We are not in 2022 with intact Ukrainian army, we are 2 years later and Ukraine has suffered massive casualties these years while Russia has far more manpower and weapons than then.
Ukraine is barely holding donbass, and now they will be more stretched needing to defend also Kharkov.
Most likely situation is hard loses in both fronts during the summer
The point is that the entire city is one big fortification, capable of hosting a garrison of immense strength.
If the Ukrainians post 50,000, mostly lightly armed, soldiers there, then surely Russia will need several times more troops to capture the city, with massive amounts of heavy equipment.
Defenders wouldn't just have the advantage of immense protection, but also the ability to move unhindered within the city, countering any assault and mustering local superiority in any area of the frontline. And the potential of outside attacks the siege would put immense requirements for securing the 90 km frontline needed for an encirclement.
We're not talking about Mariupol, which was lightly defended and easily cut off without much resistance. Nor are we talking about Gaza, which is similar in scope, but could be easily divided in sectors and with isolated defenders who has mostly basic light weapons and zero heavy weapons, plus no real outside support. Kharkiv is another type of beast entirely, with far more sturdy buildings than Gaza, a circular structure - preventing sectoring - well armed defenders, very difficult to cut off and with the potential for massive outside support.
The defensive position is such a great force multiplier, trying to surround it would quickly erode any Russian advantage across the front line. I'd think the only way of taking Kharkiv, unless the Russians want to raze all of it, is essentially to overwhelm Ukraine across the entire front, forcing them to shorten it.
