The coastal part of Ukraine has always been weakest position. The Russians have already closed all exits from Melitopol, with that, the Ukrainian military fled to Zaporizhzhya, probably the next Russian advances will be in that direction and also towards Berdyansk.
Keeping the airbases mean nothing if they are busted and all material destroyed. The news saying that the Russian left is maybe just because of that. Now they can bomb Ukrainians forces in open field when they go to retake them..
Wow that's some crazy s*** !
Yes, I’d anticipated, early on, here, that the Dnieper River was the most likely objective, should the strategy be to occupy. However, alternative, and equally plausible strategies have been posited, here, and, at this point “The Southern Strategy” seems to be coming to fruition.So far it looks like they are aiming to take the Eastern part of the Ukraine, including Kiev. Take a look at this speculation from CSIS back in January:
An interesting development in the north is Russia's decision to advance through the irradiated Pripyat marshes from Belarus, as speculated by CSIS.
