Opportunity in Operational Command South
Crushing the Russians at Kherson
The Kherson front in Ukrainian Operational Command South (OCS) has been largely overshadowed in media reporting by Russian activity in the Donbas region, with its brutal artillery barrages, heavy casualties, and modest gains for assaulting Russian army forces. However, it is at Kherson that Ukraine has a genuine chance to badly damage the Russian army. A combination of terrain, logistics, and tactical factors have served to create a potential mousetrap for Russian troops on the western bank of the Dnieper River, if Ukraine has the strength to close it.
The city of Kherson fell early in the war to Russian forces advancing north out of Crimea. Those Russian units subsequently attempted to advance north and west of the city, but were eventually checked and driven back towards the Dnieper River. Currently, Russian positions occupy an elongated pocket along the western bank of the river. This pocket is fed by two major crossing points; one at Kherson where the major rail and road bridge has been supplemented by another pontoon bridge, and a second at Nova Kakhovka which crosses over a hydroelectric dam upstream to the north.
While Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) units have been conducting offensive operations in the region for weeks, their gains have been moderate to minimal and concentrated west of Kherson itself and on the northern end of the pocket as a whole. However, the tempo and nature of their operations around the region have intensified. Long range strikes against infrastructure targets, including both crossing points over the Dnieper, coupled with high profile attacks on munitions depots and at the Saki airbase in Crimea, are setting the stage for a major operation in this sector. The UAF is preparing the battlefield.
Russia effectively has around 20,000 personnel trapped with their backs to the river. If the UAF can cut Russian links to friendly forces east of the Dnieper River and degrade Russian capabilities to feed and protect this formation, it will endanger the overall position and make it vulnerable to a UAF attack. Strikes on rear area infrastructure behind Russian lines and continued artillery attacks on both crossing points over the Dnieper serve to limit any attempt to supply, reinforce, or safely withdraw the Russian forces. Attacks on regional munitions depots and logistics centers will hinder the Russian ability to resupply these endangered units, even should an improvised delivery method be cobbled together. Finally, the Saki Airbase strike, which destroyed at least seven aircraft and may have killed numerous aircrew, significantly hampers the ability of the Russian air force to provide air support to units in the Kherson pocket. This is the lead up to offensive action by the UAF; the question then becomes what such action will or should look like.
Broadly speaking, the UAF will have two options once it feels the battlespace has been sufficiently prepared for its offensive. Under each option certain preconditions must be met in order for the UAF to achieve victory. Russian links over the river must remain destroyed in the case of bridges, or capable of being brought under sustained long range fires in the event Russian forces attempt to maintain cross river replenishment links via other methods. This will require UAF units to advance to a point where their artillery assets can be brought to bear on these crossing points, and then hold these positions for the duration of the engagement. The UAF must also marshal sufficient combat power and logistic support to contain the pocket against a potential breakout and progressively reduce it as the battle develops. If the UAF can meet these preconditions, they have the potential to force Russian forces in OCS into an extremely unfavorable position.
The question then becomes how Ukraine might exploit this situation to maximum advantage. Regardless of how the UAF chooses to proceed, Russian forces should be called on to surrender once the bridges over the Dnieper have been destroyed. Being cut off from reliable supplies and reinforcements and faced with a grim fate at the hands of Ukrainian partisans should their defenses collapse will have some impact on the average Russian soldier. Russian formations should be given the option to surrender to Ukrainian regular units and treated according to the Geneva Conventions provisions, with the implication they will be turned over to local forces for adjudication of any potential war crimes should they refuse. Mass surrenders are highly unlikely, but this announcement may result in some desertions and potential loss of morale. This sets the stage for either of the two broad approaches Ukraine might take to reducing, then destroying, the pocket.
The first is the most obvious and direct, a conventional assault on Russian positions to progressively shrink the pocket and eventually destroy Russian forces west of the Dnieper. This option keeps the initiative with the UAF, but it also has several drawbacks. First, it requires UAF support assets to do double duty by both keeping any relief and resupply attempt made by the Russians on the east bank of the river, and reducing Russian strong points in the Kherson pocket in support of assaulting UAF units. This strains both the support units and the logistics assets that sustain them in action. Second, it forces UAF units to conduct potentially costly assaults on fixed Russian positions. These are losses Ukraine can ill afford, especially among the types of units that might reasonably be expected to prevail in such operations.
This brings us to the second option. Once the UAF has achieved the conditions outlined above, it has the option to strangle the Kherson pocket by essentially laying siege to it. After cutting the pocket off from friendly forces and digging in within artillery range of potential crossing sites of the Dnieper, the UAF can then concentrate on destroying logistics & C3 centers on the west bank of the river. On the west bank, the goal will be to prevent Russian counterattacks from forcing UAF artillery back out of range of the river crossings while destroying Russian supply stockpiles with long range fires. While this surrenders some of the UAF’s initiative, it also forces the Russians to make an unpalatable choice.
As Russian troops run out of food, fuel, and ammunition in the Kherson pocket, this will force General Sergei Surovikin, reportedly the commander of Russian forces in southern Ukraine, to make a decision. He can attempt to reopen lines of replenishment, attempt to withdraw his forces east of the river, or order them to surrender. Surrender is highly unlikely, and if it happens on any significant scale it will likely be compelled by circumstance rather than officially sanctioned. Nor will the Russians lightly give up their foothold on the west bank of the river without offering serious resistance. A retrograde river crossing under fire is a recipe for heavy casualties, and the Russians have been mauled in similar previous operations elsewhere in this war. The most likely initial response will be to attempt to relieve the pocket, which plays into Ukrainian hands.
To reestablish a link to the Kherson pocket, the Russian army will have to either repair the existing bridges, conduct a full scale bridging operation to erect a new bridge, or attempt to float supplies and reinforcements across the river on some type of watercraft. However this manifests, it will require the Russians to concentrate significant numbers of personnel and equipment in a confined area for the effort, making them a prime target for UAF artillery. The goal of the UAF should be to allow any such effort to gain momentum, then annihilate it with massed fires in order to generate maximum possible casualties. This is an opportunity to inflict disproportionate losses on the Russian army, which is something the UAF cannot afford to pass up if it hopes to win this war.
The UAF will need to have sufficient support assets on hand to ensure any attempted crossing, bridging, or repair attempt is shattered. Allowing the Russians to succeed in reestablishing contact with the pocket defeats the entire purpose of the battleplan and opens up the possibility of turning a disastrous Russian situation into another meat grinder the UAF can ill afford. Once the Russians have taken sufficient casualties within the Kherson pocket, and among those forces attempting to relieve and resupply it, the UAF must prepare for the closing phase of the battle.
Should the UAF succeed in the accomplishing the steps outlined above, eventually the Russians will cease attempting to reinforce and resupply the pocket and will instead begin focusing on attempting to save as many men from it as they can. Those Russians manning the Kherson pocket will begin running out of food, ammunition, fuel and other vital resources. The point at which a withdrawal is ordered will have great impact on their combat effectiveness, but whenever the withdrawal begins is when the UAF must go over to the offensive on the ground. At that point these poorly supplied troops will be forced to leave their defensive positions and attempt to retreat across the river. This is where the UAF can inflict the most damage. Combining the previously described support fire with the pressure of a direct ground assault, against weakened Russian forces with their backs to the river, has an excellent chance of resulting in the destruction or capture of large parts of Russian army west of the Dnieper.
This is the key operational goal: not to conduct costly frontal assaults and grind the Russians down slowly while attriting UAF forces in the process, but rather to use the priceless opportunity offered by the terrain and the tactical situation of the Russian army to inflict maximum enemy casualties while minimizing the risk to UAF personnel. The correct objective of the UAF must be the destruction of the Russian army in the field, rather than simple reconquest of territory. The Kherson pocket offers a singular opportunity to deal a heavy blow to Russian forces locally and Russian morale generally. It is precisely the kind of battle Ukraine needs to fight.
Thanks for your excellent update...may it come to be...
Good piece Patrick