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There's that.Someone made a good point that doing this means that rather than just Russia grabbing land and any peace involves them keeping it, any ceasing of hostilities at the moment would involve Russia actually giving up some of their territory as well.
There's simply sending a message (both to Russia and to Allies) that the Ukrainian army is still a force, and still needs help.
There's an element of distraction, hoping that Russia would send troops there from Ukraine to sort the issue, creating an exploitable weakness in the Russian lines in Ukraine.
There's even the possibility that it's a bit of Russia (the closest bit to Kyiv) that's relatively hard for Russia to reinforce, is important for Russia's rail connections into Ukraine, and is suitable to use heavier equipment like Tanks, that the lines in Ukraine are ill-suited for. IF the plan is to take and hold, it also straightens the line of defence where Russia bubbles into Ukraine a bit. Further, it's showing actual Russians that the Ukrainian military aren't these satanic Nazis they've been portrayed as (and from the sounds of things, actively better for the Russian on the street than the previous Russian army had been).
Of course ,the real reason will be partly all of the above, and plenty of other reasons in both the risk and benefit columns, adding up to making it worth a shot.