As the Kremlin seems to see, the port city of Kherson, in southern Ukraine, on the Dnipro River, has already joined the Russian Federation.
Home to 280,000 people before the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Kherson was the first large population center in the assaulted country to fall into the hands of Russian troops, and its Russian-appointed administrators have stepped up efforts to erase all signs of Ukrainian sovereignty.
They have distributed Russian passports to residents, they have introduced Russian banks, they have introduced Russian mobile phone companies and they have converted the ruble into legal tender, replacing the Ukrainian hryvnia.
But with the days of war far from entering its sixth month, Ukrainian authorities indicate that the time is fast approaching when its military will try to retake the captured city and expel its Russian occupiers.
President Volodymr Zelenskyy and members of his administration have urged civilians to get out of the way.
“I know for a fact that there should be no women and children there, and that they should not become human shields,” Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said recently.
Key Kherson on both sides: retired colonel
Over the past six weeks, Ukrainian attacks have gradually torn apart Russian-controlled territory in the south of the country, allowing its soldiers to reach less than 20 kilometers from Kherson.
“Forty-four settlements have already been liberated in Kherson oblast,” Dmytro Butriy, the acting head of the region’s military administration, said Thursday at an online press conference in Kyiv.
“The situation there is difficult,” he continued, claiming that the destruction of the Russian bombings is “massive” and that houses, schools and many other buildings have been damaged.
Ukrainian military is traveling Wednesday in a tank near a front line in the Donbas region. While Russia is waging war along a large 1,000-kilometer front, most of its forces are concentrated in the Donbas region of Ukraine, where both sides have been caught in a hard-fought battle. . (Gleb Garanich / Reuters)
But it is still unclear whether it will reach the counteroffensive and what strength the Ukrainian army can muster after weeks of heavy fighting in the southeastern Donbas region.
Retired Ukrainian Colonel Serhiy Grabsky argues that the fate of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war depends on his army owning Kherson and Ukraine being able to distance it.
“This location will open the door for the liberation of the entire country and the completion of all of Russia’s strategic goals,” said Grabsky, who has held various international positions for a 28-year career, including as a military adviser to Russia. Iraq. government.
He said expelling Russia from Kherson would put an end to any threat to Ukrainian cities, such as Mykolaiv and Odessa, and put Russian military installations on the Crimean peninsula within reach of Ukraine’s new Western armament, including spears. -American long-range HIMARS rockets.
Serhiy Grabsky, a retired military colonel and analyst in the Ukrainian army, says expelling Russia from Kherson would put an end to any threat to Ukrainian cities, such as Mykolaiv and Odessa, and put Russian military installations on the Crimean peninsula in the scope of the new western armament of Ukraine. (Serhiy Grabsky)
“We could put under‘ fire control ’, as we call it, all the Crimean exits,” Grabsky said.
While Russia is waging war along a large 1,000-kilometer front, most of its forces are concentrated in the Donbas region, where both sides have been caught in a vicious battle of attrition.
Russia has gained territory, including the cities of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk, but at a considerable cost in lives and equipment of its soldiers.
HIMARS surpasses Russia’s arsenal
Grabsky said the southern front, which includes Kherson, extends very thin, with Ukrainian and Russian forces more or less equal.
That is why, he said, Ukrainian commanders see an opportunity to pool their forces and break the Russian lines.
“I’m absolutely optimistic,” he told CBC News.
MIRAR | Kherson residents describe strict conditions living under Russian control:
Residents of the Russian-controlled city of Kherson describe strict conditions
Tens of thousands of residents of the Russian-controlled city of Kherson in southern Ukraine have fled since the start of the invasion of Moscow. Those who remain say that challenging Russia has consequences.
Estimates of Russian military casualties since February 24, when Russia invaded Ukraine, range from a maximum of nearly 37,000 dead, according to Ukraine, to more than 15,000 or 20,000 according to estimates by the United States and Britain.
However, Ukraine has also suffered numerous casualties, including up to 200 soldiers killed in action each day at the height of fighting for Severodonetsk, where Russia finally triumphed.
A high-mobility artillery rocket system (HIMARS) M142 is fired at an undisclosed location in Ukraine, in this still image obtained from an undated video on social media posted on June 24th. The US has provided Ukraine with eight HIMARS so far, with four more per vine. (Pavlo Narozhnyy / Reuters)
Instead of a total assault on Kherson, Grabsky said he hopes Ukraine will continue with a “soft push” from its forces, to stifle supply routes to the city and eventually cut it off.
Recently, Ukraine has been using its high-mobility artillery rocket system, or HIMARS, to disrupt Russian supply centers inside the occupied territory, including several ammunition depots.
The US has provided Ukraine with eight HIMARS so far, with four more to come. The rockets are capable of hitting targets at a distance of more than 80 kilometers with extreme accuracy, far beyond the capabilities of anything Russia has in its arsenal.
Images shared by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense showed that what he claims was the HIMARS precision fire removal of a Russian ammunition dump in New Kakhovka, near Kherson. And earlier in the week, Ukraine claimed that the same system hit a Russian command post, killing a number of senior officers.
A screenshot of a video distributed by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine shows what it says is the explosion of a Russian ammunition depot in New Kakhovka, near Kherson, on Monday. (Ministry of Defense of Ukraine)
If Ukraine can organize a counter-offensive in the south leading to the liberation of Russian-controlled territory, it would be the first such success for the Ukrainian army since the February invasion.
By comparison, when Russian troops were driven out of the Kyiv area and parts of northern Ukraine around Kharkiv in April, it was after their own offensives failed.
Other military observers, however, remain wary of predicting a Ukrainian advance into Kherson.
Russia’s effective ‘grinding’ campaign
Retired four-star U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, who served as NATO’s allied supreme commander in Europe from 2013 to 2016, told BBC Radio’s Today this week that the campaign “aggressive and Russia’s “indiscriminate” to wear down the civilian and military infrastructure of Ukraine has been. effective.
However, he said, probably Ukraine can still lead a major army against Kherson.
“They don’t have the massive manpower that Russia has all over their country, but I would tell you that Ukraine has much more experienced soldiers than Russia. That’s in favor of Ukraine,” Breedlove said.
It shows a former Ukrainian command center near Izyum in eastern Ukraine. The region, bordering Donbas, has been the site of fierce battles of attrition, with land control rocking back and forth between Russian and Ukrainian forces. (Chris Brown / CBC)
Rob Lee, an analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia who has meticulously followed the course of the conflict, suggests that Ukraine will need more help from all kinds of the West if an offensive is successful.
“Kyiv will probably require a more solid training program and ammunition if it wants to reclaim a considerable amount of territory,” he wrote in a post on Twitter.
Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at St Andrews University in Scotland, said it appears that Ukrainian commanders have decided there is more to gain by focusing on Kherson than by counterattacking the Donbas, where Ukraine has has been yielding territory constantly.
“I would think that by the end of the summer, they definitely want to show that they are doing something, which is not a stalemate,” he told CBC News.
Far from the battlefield, Russia has increased pressure on European nations like Germany by restricting gas supplies. It is also blocking shipments of Ukrainian grain from leaving Black Sea ports, creating a global food crisis.
It seems that the Kremlin expects the current pressure to undermine Western determination to help Ukraine and convince Ukrainians to accept the terms of Russia’s surrender.
Protesters chanted “Come home” as they marched into retreating Russian military vehicles in Kherson on March 20. Since taking over the city, administrators appointed by Russia have distributed Russian passports, introduced Russian banks, introduced Russian mobile phone companies and made the ruble legal. currency. (Reuters)
Conversely, if Ukraine can prove that a significant victory on the battlefield over Russia is possible, it is in a stronger position to demand more Western help, O’Brien said.
Kherson is “where they should be able to attack with the greatest chance of success, when they are ready.”
“We are in a phase of attrition”
Putin has repeatedly reduced his stated goals for his invasion of Ukraine.
At first, lightning assault on Kyiv with paratroopers in the early hours of the war appeared with the aim of capturing the capital and beheading the Zelensky government.
Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy examines the positions of members of the Ukrainian service in the Dnipropetrovsk region on July 8, while Russia’s attack on the country continues. (Reuters)
Then, after the Russian troops suffered heavy losses and withdrew, Putin’s commanders rethought the war as a struggle …