In a long string of defeats, Ukraine has just delivered
to Russia it's most humiliating one to date- Kherson is officially liberated.
But Russia retreating across the entire east could be really bad news for Ukraine.
The stunning counteroffensive that began in September was initially believed to be only a
flash in the pan for Ukraine. After a long string of slow but gradual defeats, it was inconceivable
that Ukraine had the ability to so thoroughly beat Russian troops on the battlefield- and that
might have been the case if not for two things: western aid and good old fashioned Ukrainian grit.
The counteroffensive that would change the course of the war had its roots in the start of summer,
when Ukraine began thinking of delivering a counterpunch to overstretched Russian lines.
With an initial invasion force of just under 200,000 troops it was clear from the start
of the war that Russia's military was poorly equipped to occupy even just the east of the
country. Once it became obvious that Russia would not win the swift victory it had planned for,
western analysts began to take a hard look at the numbers, and even with support from
the separatists regions, everyone came to the same conclusion: Russia didn't have the numbers
to take the entire country. It might not even have the numbers to take and hold the east.
At the start of the war Ukraine had just under 250,000 troops along with a whopping 2 million
reservists- many of whom had combat experience from fighting rebels in the breakaway regions.
Russia was relying on the perceived superiority of its military technology and equipment to win
a quick war, but corruption, ineptitude, and very poor doctrine inevitably revealed
this force multiplier to be significantly less effective than believed to be even
by the west. Add in a rapid influx of man portable anti-tank and air defense systems
from the US and the EU and it became clear that Russia had kicked the hornet's nest.
And now it was time for the hornets to sting back.
The initial plan drawn up by Ukraine remains classified, but what is known is that US military
leadership immediately rejected the proposal and set about working with their Ukrainian
counterparts to draw up a new counteroffensive plan for the coming fall. With their combined
expertise, the two nation's senior military staff drew up a plan that would capitalize
on both Ukraine's strengths and Russia's weaknesses. HIMARS would be the star of the show,
with Ukraine making use of the long range high precision weapon system to destroy
supply lines and command posts, making it difficult for Russia to maintain command
and control centers close to their front lines while also resuppling their troops.
A clever deception campaign convinced the Russians that the Ukrainians would attack Kherson directly,
thus prompting them to move several Battalion Tactical Groups from the north of the captured
territories to the south. An attack towards Kherson would signal the start
of the counteroffensive, but within days it became clear that Russia had been bamboozled,
as a swift and overwhelming thrust north overwhelmed Russian positions
there. Scrambling to hold the line in the north, Russia found itself unable
to both defend the much more strategically important Kherson region and its lines of
communication running south out of Russia and into northeast Ukraine.
The Russian Ministry of Defense and Russian military bloggers online all claimed that
Ukraine simply took advantage of weakened Russian positions and that's why they achieved so much
success in the north. However, that myth was put firmly to rest on November 11th when Ukrainian
troops tore down the Russian flags flying in Kherson and returned the Ukrainian colors to their
place. Ukraine had outfought, outmaneuvered, and outwitted a far superior Russian force fighting
on defensible terrain, forcing a panicked retreat over 48 hours from November 9th to the 10th that
saw rearguard Russian forces trying desperately to buy time for command posts to be evacuated.
As we make this video, Ukraine is in control of Kherson,
and this puts critical Russian bases in Crimea directly under threat from their BFF,
HIMARS. But while this is a stunning victory, Russia's retreat could be bad news for Ukraine.
First, Russia is a very sore loser. We've seen this time and again as Putin's forces
are humiliated and he resorts to attacking defenseless civilians. This tactic of using
Russia's ever-shrinking stockpile of precision weapons and drones to attack civilians and
their infrastructure is as most military analysts have put it, “absolutely asinine”,
given that those same weapons would be better employed against the military targets Russian
forces keep retreating from. But it's not just about Putin's ego being as big
as his former-warship-now-submarine the Moskva, it's also a concerted effort to
try to defeat Ukraine's will to fight. If Russia can't beat the Ukrainian military,
it would rather destroy the civilian population's will to continue fighting.
By targeting residential blocks and shopping malls, Russia wants to terrorize the population
into submission. The destruction of power plants and power distribution networks is
meant to deprive the Ukrainian people of electricity right as winter approaches,
when they'll need it most to heat their homes. So while Ukraine's military victories mount, Russia's
willingness to commit war crimes only increases. As of the making of this show there is yet to be
a retaliatory attack by Russia, but one is sure to come- one can only guess as to the scale of
the attack and the price innocent civilians will have to pay for the Russian military's ineptitude.
Liberating Kherson will place pressure on additional fronts though. To put it simply,
Putin is looking for an out that will preserve his legitimacy, but to date Russian forces have
failed to secure even the breakway regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. The only way that Putin
would have been able to swallow losing the regional capital of Kherson was if his military
commanders promised him they could put those troops to use pushing Ukrainian forces out
of the separatist regions entirely for once and for all. So freedom for Kherson means increased,
and desperate fighting for forces and civilians in Luhanks and Donetks.
There's a significant strategic concern as well with Russia's retreat from Kherson however. The
taking of the city is a huge boon to both the morale of Ukraine's military and its
ability to continue prosecuting this war- but Ukraine was unable to prevent a mass retreat
by Russian forces. This means that thousands of Russian soldiers will live to fight another day,
and even more importantly: they are now safely on the other side of a very difficult
river crossing. Just ask the Russians how difficult river crossings can be.
Russia had long been preparing for a retreat from Kherson though, and has
delivered prefabricated concrete fighting positions to the eastern riverbank. These
concrete structures are blast resistant and can withstand small arms fire, while allowing
Private Conscriptavich inside to return fire with relative safety. The fact that there's
no functioning bridge that military vehicles can use to cross the Dnipro river means that Ukraine
will have to either attempt to build a pontoon bridge or use ferries like the Russians did.
But ferries are slow and can only move limited amounts of equipment at a time,
which is why the Russians were forced to leave so much of it behind. Few ferries
are available or even rated to carry heavy main battle tanks. And pontoon bridges are
famously risky affairs, as the enemy can easily zero in on your bridge and
destroy it with air power or artillery the moment vehicles begin to cross it.
If there's a saving grace in all this for Ukraine it's the fact that the Ukrainian
military is not as... 'operationally-challenged' as the Russian military. Back in Bilohorivka,
the Russians made multiple attempts to cross a river at the exact same spot,
despite every single attempt being blasted to pieces by Ukrainian artillery. Because
junior officers are not allowed to make battlefield decisions on their own,
senior commanders sitting happily in a rear area insisted that the crossing of the
Siverskyi Donets be repeated in the exact same area over and over again. Estimates
put Russia's losses at an entire Battalion Tactical Group's worth of men and equipment.
The incident was a military disaster of such a scale that the United States
trolled Russia publicly on its US Army Europe and Africa twitter account.
Ukraine has its eyes on Crimea now, and Kherson gives it a staging ground to do so- however it
must cross the Dnipro river and then defeat the heavily fortified Russian forces there.
This is going to be a significant challenge even for battle-hardened Ukrainian forces,
and while the liberation of Kherson was a huge strategic victory, until the Dnipro
can be bridged successfully Ukraine faces a steep uphill battle to win the war from here.
But Ukrainian grit combined with western weapons
and advisors have proven to be a force to truly be reckoned with.
Now go check out How Russian Tactics To Take Over Ukraine Will Backfire,
or click this other video instead!