The conflict in Ukraine appears to have reached another key moment that has the potential to influence the course of the rest of the war. Ukrainian troops, who have been sweeping through the south of the country since September appear poised to recapture the city of Kherson.
Russia’s military commander in Ukraine, General Sergei Surovikin, announced on November 9 that, due to the difficulty of supplying forces holding Kherson, troops would withdraw across to the western bank of the Dnieper river. Civilians have been evacuated, some apparently unwillingly. (Kyiv has complained of “forced deportations”.)
Now the question is how and when Ukrainian troops will begin their assault on Kherson proper. Christopher Morris, an expert in military strategy at the University of Portsmouth, says there are fears among Ukrainian commanders that this may be a way of trying to entice their troops into a situation of urban warfare, for which the butcher’s bill would be terribly high. But this cuts both ways, writes Morris, who points out that Russian commanders would have painful memories of the battle for Grozny in Chechnya in 1995.
