Russia had golden opportunity to open a new front in Ukraine, but missed it

Russia had golden opportunity to open a new front in Ukraine, but missed it
Russia's offensive in the Kharkov region is gradually slowing down. The Russian army has lost a golden opportunity to open a new front in Ukraine.
Business Insider writes about this . A month ago, the Russian Federation launched a new offensive in the Kharkov regin. Then Ukraine found itself in a particularly vulnerable place. However, after four weeks, Russian forces stalled. White House National Security Adviser John Kirby announced that the occupation offensive was "almost over."
In retrospect, what is striking is “how little Russia actually achieved,” Patrick Bury, a military analyst at Britain's University of Bath, told Business Insider. Moreover, the offensive led to strategic consequences, which forced the United States to allow Ukraine to hit targets on Russian territory with its weapons.
"If you rewind back a month, the situation for Ukraine looked grim. When Putin's troops crossed the border into the Kharkov region on May 10, the defenses were so weak that one soldier told the Air Force that they 'just walked in,'" material says.
Several villages quickly fell under the control of the enemy army, and the Russians soon claimed that they had reached the strategic city of Volchansk, which is located on a key highway. But they did not advance further.
Due to the intensification of the Russians, Ukraine had to transfer desperately needed units from near Chasov Yar to repel the attack, said Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute. At the same time, the Russians found themselves overloaded and unprotected.
Nick Reynolds, a fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told that if Russia had waited until it could get more trained units into the front line, its forces "could have at least begun to encircle Kharkov and control key motorways." At the same time, the Institute for the Study of War said Putin may have rushed the offensive, trying to get ahead of Western help, and used "insufficiently prepared forces" in doing so.
Recently, Putin announced that the goal of the Russian offensive is to create a buffer zone that will protect Belgorod from attacks from Ukraine. But in fact, it has achieved just the opposite, experts say.
"Belgorod has long been vulnerable to cross-border attacks, and during the spring there was an increase in the number of drone and missile attacks that Russia blamed on Ukraine. But by gaining little cover for Belgorod, Putin opened up much more opportunities for Ukraine," the publication explains.
This situation has helped deepen Western understanding of how dangerous the situation in Ukraine is becoming. In particular, US President Joe Biden quietly shifted one of the long-standing “red lines”.
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