A few days ago I shared on my Twitter account (@Russ_Warrior) the info that the plans of an impending large scale Ukrainian offensive against the DPR and LPR have been leaked and I posted a map based on them.
The map shows the intention to encircle Donetsk through an operation that entails two different offensives, one from the Gorlovka area where Ukrainian forces have already seized in mid November the settlement of Gladosovo, located in the neutral zone, and they repeatedly launched attacks on Granitnoye and Travnevo (repelled by DPR army)
and one from the area north of Dokuchajevsk, a town also permanently under shellings. This kind of operation, that according to the plans, has the ultimate goal of taking control of the border with Russia, requires a vast amount of troops, artillery and tanks because the only way they have a chance to succeed is through a blitzkrieg.
Few weeks ago the "Reintegration Law" of Donbass has been approved by the Ukrainian parliament, the Rada; this law posed grave concerns because it never mentions the Minsk agreements and it declares the DPR and LPR as occupied territories while previously they were recognized as "controlled by terrorists", this definition was applied immediately in 2014 when the regime that illegally came to power in Kiev decided to neutralize the peaceful protests (against the coup and the proposal to ban the teaching of Russian language) with military means through an "Anti-Terrorism Operation" which led to the creation of self-defence militias (helped by Russia) in Donbass and later of the self-proclaimed republics.
In practice the law points only to a military solution to the conflict and this is already a stupid idea but to make it worse it puts Russia in the position to be dragged into a direct conflict with NATO if some of the troops currently on Ukrainian soil from Canada, US, UK, Baltics and Poland participate to the possible large-scale offensive against DPR and LPR, the armies of the republics are averagely composed by locals for 95% and by foreigners for 5% (mostly russian volunteers) so the definition "occupied territories" doesn't match with the real situation on the ground.
Now let's analyze the scenarios we may see in the coming months:
FROZEN CONFLICT
Despite it frequently talks about retaking Donbass the Kiev regime made it clear that it will never implement the Minsk agreements, in practice it will never give autonomy to the region and no amnesty for locals who took up arms (this is completely ruled out by the new reintegration law) so no peaceful solution in sight; the resumption of hostilities is suicidal because no matter the amount of forces that will be pushed into the fight Kiev has very few chances to win (almost 0) because Russia will always outnumber them and regardless of its lack of objectivity OSCE will report the truth about the side that launched the offensive (at least behind the scenes) so all those NATO countries that didn't give help until now won't even consider about starting to do so and the countries that helped the regime like Canada, US or UK for example, unless they want to lose they must go all-in against Russia but this is still unlikely even if the warmongering rethoric from Washington is increasing by the day, this is why frozen conflict is the likeliest scenario, a continuation of skirmishes and shellings in a small scale.
UKRAINIAN OFFENSIVE
I already described at the top of the article the plan drawn by Kiev, in my opinion while it's clear that Poroshenko, Tuchynov, Avakov & Co. are psychopaths definitely capable to give the order to start a large scale offensive I doubt they will do it and if they will they certainly have prepared a fast way out of the country because none of them will die on the frontline as they have been put in power to use Ukrainians as cannon fodder and to pillage the country for western vultures like Biden's son, not to make the people's life better or fight against corruption (increased exponentially in last 3 years), this was never the idea behind Maidan, statements about "Ukrainian offensive" have generally electoral purposes and they are useful to appease the Neo-Nazis like the Azov battalion, if the collective consciusness of Ukraine remains in a permanent state of war people will not think about the skyrocketing poverty and the dramatic upsurge of the crime rate.
The only reason why Kiev may escalate the conflict in Donbass (it doesn't necessarily mean implementing the plan described above) is to provoke a reaction from Moscow on the eve of presidential elections and/or during the World Cup to destabilise and divert attention from the events.
UN PEACEKEEPING
The peacekeeping mission in Donbass is an option that can't be excluded but as today the divergence between the position of Russia and the US remains deep, in the comunicate released after the last meeting between Surkov and Volker (the Russian and American representatives in the contact group) a bit of optimism was expressed on some issues but in general Russia believes that the peacekeepers must be deployed only on the demarcation line (the one designated by the Minks agreements) because the republics are still under a Ukrainian blockade and closing the border between them and Russia would cause an humanitarian catastrophe while the American position (shared basically by the EU with small differences) is that the peacekeepers should be deployed in the entire territory of the republics but particularly on the border with Russia which it's of course unacceptable for the Kremlin, the other difference is on the composition of the UN contingent, leaders of DPR and LPR categorically rejected the idea that NATO countries can provide an amount of troops because that would transform the mission into a military occupation conducted by the enemy.
NOVOROSSIYA
At the beginning of the conflict the creation of a federation, that included all regions where ethnic Russians are the majority of the population, spanning from Kharkov to Odessa was an option to respond to the coup and ATO, it remained on the table during all the period of the open conflict but it has been abandoned by the Kremlin after the signing of the Minsk agreements, the only way it can resurface is as a response to a Ukrainian offensive that requires a direct intervention of the Russian army to be repelled, in this case Kiev could be taught a lesson so it will never have the strength to try again, it can also return on the table if an uprising begin in regions like Kharkov and Kherson but this is unlikely at this point.
