@Red Leg, do you think the Kherson withdrawal is for real? It only really makes sense if they truly had no choice. Perhaps their overall strategic objectives have been scaled back to retaining a defensible sliver of the land bridge, and they will then make that an absolute requirement in the peace negotiations? So the original objective of making all of Ukraine a buffer, then shrinking back to just the annexed states, to possibly just a defensible strip looks to be what is actually happening.
Absolutely real. This is the Kherson main square yesterday afternoon.
And some fresh shadenfreude overnight from my favorite Russian propogandist.
In spite of the incalculable political damage this causes the brilliant former KGB agent strategist in the Kremlin, withdrawal across the Dnieper in this area was the only course of action left to the Russians if they wanted to save the remnants of the estimated 40K troops initially deployed on the right bank. They were already taking heavy casualties as Ukraine constricted the circle surrounding the city and thanks to HIMARs strikes, Ukraine had cut off all road and rail links to the north bank. The Russian position was militarily untenable.
Though Ukraine was glad to see them go without a hugely destructive fight within the city of Kherson itself, I suspect a lot of additional casualties were suffered by the withdrawing forces. Ukraine has achieved artillery dominance around Kherson and maintained near continuous bombardment of the sites where barges were ferrying troops to the south. They will have also captured every piece of abandoned equipment on the north bank.
I won't post it here, but there are literally piles of dead Russians caught in the open by Ukrainian artillery. The clip below is instructive. It shows a Grad MLRS strike against withdrawing Russian troops. Note the full battery is in the open firing full loads. That can only happen where a force has fires superiority and is unworried about counterfire.
The Russian move, however late, is smart because the River can not be easily crossed due to its width at Kherson. Assuming the surviving units can be reconstituted on the south bank - a rather large assumption, a portion then would be re-deployable to the East where Russian units are under enormous pressure in Donbas. Due to equipment shortages, I suspect these survivors actually will be fed into that cauldron as individual replacements. Not exactly the technique to maintain good order and morale.
Ukraine hauling off an abandoned Russian T-90 day before yesterday outside Kherson. By the way, the cage on top is totally ineffective against a Javelin or NLAW.
The other thing this does is provide a boundary should a negotiation eventually grant Russia a land bridge to Crimea.
At the moment I see no reason or desire for Ukraine to embark on such a negotiation.
Without knowing the details of Ukrainian mechanized forces current combat strength (they too will have taken meaningful losses while on the offense), I would be surprised if the next big push isn't toward Mariupol. A drive to the sea would take the land bridge off the table and put all of Crimea, not merely the south bank of Kherson province at risk.
At the operational level, Russia is in a very difficult position trying to fight a defensive battle on exterior lines. Winter is coming.
In a month the ground will freeze making mobile warfare possible again. Ukraine's troops are fully equipped with winter combat gear thanks to NATO. Newly mobilized Russian troops with little to no training and limited winter combat gear will be opposing them.
If someone could make Putin understand the real situation, they would be smart to cut the best deal they can right now - assuming Ukraine has any interest or reason to sit down with them.
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