The progress of Ukrainian forces along the southern front offers the Russians two choices, according to a Norwegian expert: abandon the land west of the Dnipro River. Or he tries to keep the ground, but lets the forces be blown away.
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Kherson, one of the four counties that Russia annexedit has long been a battleground for a war of attrition.
Ukrainian forces bombed Russian positions with long-range artillery rockets, but only in the past three days have they advanced to the ground.
Tuesday shows one update from Reuters that Ukrainian forces had their biggest breakthrough at the front in the south of the country during the seven months of the war.
– Ukraine has managed to break through the front of the Russian defense lines, north-east in Kherson. They have implemented what can be called a half-pincer maneuver, says Lieutenant Colonel Palle Ydstebø, a land warfare expert at the Norwegian Military Academy.
– They have the potential to split the Russian forces in two in Kherson. They may be able to push Russian soldiers into the city of Kherson, he explains.
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The past three days have been dramatic along two central front lines in the war in Ukraine:
- On Saturday, Ukrainian forces took control of the city of Lyman in Donetsk Oblast. The Russian forces in the city were about to be completely surrounded by the Ukrainians, before they were forced to flee.
- After the fall of Lyman, Ukrainian forces continued to head east towards the borders of Luhansk Oblast. Two of the central places Ukrainians are approaching are the neighboring cities of Sievjerodonetsk and Lysytjansk, which they lost control of after fierce fighting this summer.
- On Monday and Tuesday, Russian forces suffered dramatic casualties in southern Kherson County. The villages of Mykhailivka, Havrylivka and Novooleksandrivka in the northeast of the county are second Institute for the Study of War freed, but now the front line is moving rapidly in favor of the Ukrainians. Social media videos show Ukrainian civilians approaching the soldiers crying and happy.
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Push towards collapse
Developments over the past three days could mean that the collapse that Ukrainian forces tried to carry out in Kherson has begun. Ydstebø previously defined the Ukrainian tactics a “slow cold choking”.
– In any case, it is quite clear that this is a powerful offensive and not a diversionary maneuver, says Ydstebø.
It refers to Ukraine’s lightning-fast offensive in Kharkiv in the north of the country in early September there the Russians were pushed from reduced to reduced. Then many believed that the whole offensive in the south, which had been announced the week beforeit had been implemented to mislead the Russians.
– There is a real threat to Kherson. Losing Kherson appears to hurt Putin more than Kharkiv, since Kherson County has been “annexed,” Ydstebø says.
– It will be a bit like Hitler, who would not give up a meter. Putin is eager to keep all the ground that the Russians have conquered.
