>>49946
General Oleksandr Syrskyi visited Bakhmut and talked about the importance of holding it.

"It is necessary to gain time for the accumulation of reserves and the beginning of the spring counteroffensive, which is just around the corner," said Syrskyi.

Seems they are going to try and do something unless it's just talk.

>The bloke gave the opinion that these troops could be used in the southern offensive (towards the sea of Azov), but here they would be just wasted.

I agree. It's much more open in the south and it would have a real strategic impact.

>I remember that before the Kherson and Kharkov offensive were launched there were also gossips about the Kherson one, but little mention of Kharkov. I might remember wrong about the latter.

I remember that too. But that was due to the nature of the Kharkiv offensive, the Russians didn't have much in the area so it wasn't hard to dislodge them. They didn't need to build up the forces and put the effort into it that they did in Kherson.