Russian forces have not conducted a sustained battlefield air interdiction (BAI) campaign with drones against operational and tactical rear areas along the international border in northern Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts to prepare the battlefield for ground assaults, as the Russian forces have done in the Pokrovsk and Hulyaipole directions.[21]

These BAI campaigns are part of a new Russian campaign design that aims to set conditions for intensified ground operations by degrading Ukrainian logistics and defenses ahead of such ground operations.[22] The absence of such preparation of the battlefield in Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts is therefore noteworthy, as such shaping operations have become the standard Russian operational template for enabling ground operations. Ukrainian Joint Forces Task Force Spokesperson Colonel Viktor Trehubov’s stated that the Russian operations in the border area do not appear to be an effort to conduct a large-scale breakthrough or a major military operation but are a local provocation — a statement consistent with all available open-source information.[23]

The Russian tactics in the assault in Sotnytskyi Kozachok are not consistent with Russian assault tactics across the theater and suggest the attack was designed to be seen.