(Mykolaiv) Ukraine announced on Thursday the reconquest of a dozen villages in the Kherson region, in the south of the country, where Moscow confirmed that it had begun its withdrawal, a new major setback for Vladimir Putin’s army.
Updated yesterday at 4:55 p.m.
“It is not the enemy who is withdrawing, it is the Ukrainians who are driving out the occupier by paying the price”, underlined in the evening President Volodymyr Zelensky, taking the opposite view of the Russian army which said Wednesday to withdraw to occupy better positions. “It was achieved through courage, through pain and with loss,” added the Ukrainian president.
At midday, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Valery Zalouzhny, announced that his forces had advanced 7 km on Wednesday, taking control of six localities in the direction of Petropavlivka-Novoraïsk” and also taking over “six localities in the direction of Pervomaiske-Kherson”.
Volodymyr Zelensky said that a total of “41 villages” had now been taken over in the region, where the Ukrainian counter-offensive began in October.
The Russian army has announced that it has begun its withdrawal by moving its troops from the right (western) bank, where the city of Kherson is located, to the left bank of the Dnieper River, a natural obstacle theoretically easier to defend.
“Units of the Russian troop contingent are maneuvering towards positions set up on the left bank of the Dnieper River,” the Russian Defense Ministry said.
General Surovikin, in charge of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, announced on Wednesday that the withdrawal would be done “very quickly”, without giving a timetable.
On the Ukrainian side, the announcement was received without triumph and with circumspection, Kyiv suspecting a trap. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reacted on Wednesday with “extreme caution”.
Silence of the Kremlin
Noting that at this stage he could “neither confirm nor deny the information relating to an alleged withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson”, General Oleksiï Gromov, representative of the Ukrainian general staff, nevertheless underlined that, with their backs to the Dnieper, the Russians had “no choice but to flee” in the face of the Ukrainian push.
In Mykolaiv, a large southern city about a hundred kilometers northwest of Kherson, residents are suspicious of the Kremlin’s intentions.
Satellite images still showed in recent days the Russians digging lines of trenches on the left bank of the Dnieper, on the other side of the river.
These positions could allow the Russians to be very well placed to target Ukrainian troops entering Kherson.
For Igor Kossorotov, a 59-year-old mechanic, “the Russians will simply destroy the city and then that’s it”. “They will make it flow into the river”.
For its part, the Kremlin made no comment, the daily briefing of its spokesman having been canceled Thursday.
US President Joe Biden felt that the announcement of the withdrawal constituted “proof that (the Russians) have real problems”.
A Russian withdrawal “would be a new victory” for Kyiv, welcomed NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg from Rome.
The departure from Kherson, if confirmed, constitutes a new scathing setback for Moscow, already forced to abandon the Kharkiv region (north-east) in September.
Especially since Vladimir Putin had claimed at the end of September the annexation of four Ukrainian regions, including Kherson, and on September 21 ordered the mobilization of some 300,000 reservists to consolidate the Russian lines.
The Russian president had warned that Russia would defend “by all means” what it now considers to be its territory.
Since the summer, the Ukrainian army, strong in Western armaments, has gradually worn down the Russian forces, in particular by pounding the bridges, essential to supplying the troops on the western bank of the Dnieper.
Window for negotiations?
Reason and scope for a Russian withdrawal from Kherson
The Russian army announced Thursday to begin the withdrawal of its troops from Kherson, a strategic city in southern Ukraine occupied by Moscow since February. Explanations on the scope of this withdrawal and setback for Vladimir Putin.
Why now ?
The commander of Russian operations in Ukraine, General Sergei Surovikin, presented this retreat as a way to save thousands of Russian soldiers still there, stuck with their backs to the Dnieper River and under great pressure.
Since the end of August, the Ukrainian army has been leading a vast counter-offensive in the region which has enabled it to take back, step by step, dozens of localities.
With high-precision, long-range artillery pieces delivered by the West, including US Himars, Kyiv relentlessly bombarded Russian ammunition depots and supply lines in the region for weeks. Targeted assassinations of pro-Russian cadres have also increased there.
“The enemy had no choice but to flee,” noted General Oleksiï Gromov, representative of the Ukrainian general staff, on Thursday, saying however that he could not “neither confirm nor deny” the reality of the withdrawal. .
Moscow had already ordered on October 18 the departure of civilians and the occupation administration from Kherson to the left bank of the Dnieper, a natural barrier where Moscow could more easily consolidate its lines.
The ISW military analysis center also deemed it unlikely that the announcement of the Russian withdrawal was a feint.
He claims to have observed in recent times “a constant withdrawal of Russian forces, military and economic resources and elements of the occupation” towards the east bank of the Dnieper.
Whatever ?
This retreat is a huge setback for the Russia of Vladimir Putin, who had claimed the annexation in September of the Kherson region with three other Ukrainian territories and declared that these lands would remain Russian “forever”.
Strategically, without a bridgehead in Kherson, it will be difficult for Moscow to continue its offensive towards the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, then the strategic port of Odessa on the Black Sea.
In addition, Russia could lose control of the Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper, which is strategic for supplying water to the annexed Crimean peninsula which borders the Kherson region.
From the city of Kherson, Ukrainian troops could even hit Crimea directly with their long-range artillery.
After the Russian withdrawal from northeastern Ukraine, this second major withdrawal in two months may also weigh on the morale of the troops, at the very time when Moscow is deploying hundreds of thousands of reservists, civilians with no real military experience to most.
What reactions in Russia?
Russian news channels provided minimal coverage of this retreat on Thursday, as often in the event of bad news from the Ukrainian front.
Unlike previous Russian setbacks, the voices of regime hardliners generally approved of the retreat, refraining from criticizing the Russian military hierarchy.
The Chechen satrap Ramzan Kadyrov, or the leader of the powerful paramilitary group Wagner, Evguéni Prigojine, have both welcomed a difficult but necessary decision.
The appointment in October of General Sergei Surovikin to head the Russian forces in Ukraine seems to have satisfied the most radical. Because this soldier with a sinister face enjoys the aura of a ruthless, but competent leader, and capable, if necessary, of making difficult decisions.
The following ?
The withdrawal from Kherson should allow Russian forces to entrench themselves behind the natural barrier of the Dnieper, making it much more difficult to pursue a Ukrainian offensive in the region.
Moscow, which has suffered heavy losses, also wants to give itself the time to equip and train the tens of thousands of soldiers mobilized since September. With a view, perhaps, to a new offensive after the winter.
US officials have also raised the possibility of a resumption of peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow, stalled since late March.
In the Donbass, Russia has been trying for several weeks to take the city of Bakhmout, which had 70,000 inhabitants before the invasion.
“It has become more complicated over the past three days,” Vitaly, a 26-year-old Ukrainian soldier, told AFP. “The Russians are pushing more and more, even if our men are holding their positions,” he said from Bakhmout.
Kyiv’s successes have also revived speculation about the possible resumption of peace talks, with some media even claiming that the West was pushing Ukraine to resume them.
“There are well over 100,000 Russian soldiers killed and wounded,” the top US military official, General Mark Milley, said Wednesday, speaking to the New York Economic Club. “Same thing probably on the Ukrainian side,” he added.
“There must be a mutual recognition that military victory is unlikely, in the proper sense of the word, to be achieved by military means”, added General Milley, believing that there is “a window of opportunity for the negotiation”.
But Volodymyr Zelensky this week recalled his conditions for this, the first of which is the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory. And the United States did not seem to weaken its military support for Kyiv, announcing Thursday a new tranche of aid of 400 million dollars including “additional anti-aircraft defense capabilities”.