What does this mean? What is the strategic gain for attacking the city of Lviv?
My opinion and is based on the news feeds I read and some knowledge of military strategy - by no means am I an expert.
Intelligence: Russian Offensive
- Russian forces are occupying major regions in Donetsk, Luhansk, Melitopol, and Kherson regions.
- Russian forces attack on Kyiv unsuccessfully resulting in a withdraw from the region.
- Indiscriminate attacks on civilians and non-military buildings.
- Logistics - initial attacks resulted in a major supply shutdown but in recent weeks logistic issues seemed to have been resolved.
- China is in support with finance and supplies.
Counterintelligence: Ukraine Defense
- Countries that support Ukraine are increasing their military aid.
- Russia has made threats of major attacks if supporting countries continue to aid Ukraine.
- Poland is the primary logistical hub for supplies and refugees.
- Ukraine applies to enter into the European Union but will not join NATO.
Based on the intelligence, here is my analysis:
- The attack on Lviv is a distraction in two ways.
- first - Eastern Ukraine offensive will increase.
- second - the region around Lviv will see an increase in long-range artillery attacks with a possible bombardment into Poland to draw NATO forces to attack in defense of the border between Poland and Ukraine.
- The attacks in Eastern and Western Ukraine will result in the Ukraine military being forced to defend those regions and leaving the middle region with limited defenses included Kyiv the capitol city which was the Russia's first objective.