Russia plans to exact a toll on Ukrainian forces in the city of Kherson by using raw recruits in savage house-to-house urban combat, according to various indicators.
Russian authorities have been pressuring city inhabitants to evacuate on a major scale, implying that they foresee a harsh period of urban warfare. Hapless Russian conscripts would be hidden among the buildings to make Ukrainian assault forces pay bitterly.
This contrasts with the urban warfare in Mariupol, when Russian rockets, missiles and artillery shells pulverized the city so that Russian troops might advance with lowered resistance. The Ukrainians however will be hard put to use such a technique as it would appear that they are doing just what they had condemned. Still, if the city has been evacuated, Kyiv might be able to justify blowing down probable Russian hideouts.
A major question is how willing the ill-trained conscripts are to die to cover the retreat of the remaining Russian forces. The probability of mass defections to the Ukrainians gives Russian commanders a major headache. The likelihood of such defections is enhanced by the fact that a disproportionate number of the conscripts are not ethnic Russians, but members of minority groups living in remote regions of the Russian Federation.
The Ukrainian general staff said some Russian elements are preparing Kherson for urban combat, while other soldiers continue to flee the city via the ferry operating in the vicinity of the Antonivsky Bridge.
The Russian Kherson Occupation Administration announced that “all citizens of Kherson must immediately leave the city” and said that all civilians and “all departments and ministries of civil administration must now cross over" to the east bank of the Dnipro River.
From the Institute for the Study of War:
Russian authorities have been pressuring city inhabitants to evacuate on a major scale, implying that they foresee a harsh period of urban warfare. Hapless Russian conscripts would be hidden among the buildings to make Ukrainian assault forces pay bitterly.
This contrasts with the urban warfare in Mariupol, when Russian rockets, missiles and artillery shells pulverized the city so that Russian troops might advance with lowered resistance. The Ukrainians however will be hard put to use such a technique as it would appear that they are doing just what they had condemned. Still, if the city has been evacuated, Kyiv might be able to justify blowing down probable Russian hideouts.
A major question is how willing the ill-trained conscripts are to die to cover the retreat of the remaining Russian forces. The probability of mass defections to the Ukrainians gives Russian commanders a major headache. The likelihood of such defections is enhanced by the fact that a disproportionate number of the conscripts are not ethnic Russians, but members of minority groups living in remote regions of the Russian Federation.
The Ukrainian general staff said some Russian elements are preparing Kherson for urban combat, while other soldiers continue to flee the city via the ferry operating in the vicinity of the Antonivsky Bridge.
The Russian Kherson Occupation Administration announced that “all citizens of Kherson must immediately leave the city” and said that all civilians and “all departments and ministries of civil administration must now cross over" to the east bank of the Dnipro River.
From the Institute for the Study of War:
Russian forces are preparing a series of delaying actions with mixed efficacy. Russian forces are likely preparing to destroy the dam at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant, flooding and widening the Dnipro River to delay any Ukrainian advances. Russian occupation authorities in Nova Kakhovka are likely attempting to moderate the resultant flooding; Nova Kakhovka Occupation head Vladimir Leontyev said on October 22 that Russian authorities are lowering the volume of water from the reservoir behind the dam to minimize damage in case the [plant] is destroyed but stayed true to the false narrative that Ukraine, not Russia, would blow the dam. Ukraine has no interest destroying the dam and every interest in preserving the energy supply in newly-liberated parts of Kherson Oblast.
Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reiterated that Russian military leadership has moved their officer corps across the river but left newly-mobilized men on the western bank of the Dnipro River as a detachment left in contact. Using such inexperienced forces to conduct a delaying action could prompt a Russian rout if Ukrainian forces choose to press the attack, as ISW previously assessed. One Russian milblogger noted that the situation in Kherson Oblast is dire for Russian troops, noting that it is ”virtually impossible” for Russia to evacuate troops from the first lines of defense and that only two questions remain: how to withdraw the final front line of forces, and how to explain the withdrawal to the Russian population.
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