Ukraine’s capture of Kherson two weeks ago, coming after months of grueling combat, was perhaps the most humiliating setback for Russian forces since the war began nine months ago. The successful Ukrainian counteroffensive occurred five weeks after Putin declared Kherson, as well as Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia, a part of Russian territory. The Kremlin’s propaganda network has gone to work explaining to the Russian population that the pullback was a difficult but absolutely necessary decision.
For the Ukrainians, the liberation of the administrative district brings a new set of questions. What’s the next move militarily? How far should the Ukrainian army push before winter sets in? Should Kyiv contemplate negotiations with Moscow — and if so, when should those negotiations occur?
There are no easy answers. While military experts and the U.S. intelligence community predict the front lines will stabilize as the weather gets more unbearable, previous predictions in hindsight have turned out to be flat-out wrong. Before the war, not many people believed the Ukrainian army had the capacity to resist the Russian offensive for very long, let alone stop and reverse the Russian army’s progress. Not many expected Russian military commanders to be so incompetent or Russian troops to be so unmotivated.
