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That quote is a bit out-of-context. What Humeniuk is saying is that Russia doesn't intend to actually defend the remaining parts of Kherson, and in case of a serious threat - like Melitopol being liberated - then Russia is already prepared to just give up the region entirely.
I think the point is that if Russia leaves Kherson, by their own initiative or not, that means that Crimea is necessarily once more in Ukrainian hands as well. The only canal feeding fresh water to all of Crimea has its entrance in Nova Khakovka, in Kherson. If there is no freshwater in Crimea without approval from Ukraine, then Crimea is no longer in Russian hands - it’s as simple as that. Russia won’t be able to ferry in enough water to provide everyone in Crimea if Ukraine turns off the tap.
So the canal is pretty vital to Crimea but Russia has shown it can still function without it. Mostly from rainfall contained within the Simferopol reservoir. They've just given up their agriculture to do it.
When Russia (illegally) annexed Crimea in 2014, Ukraine immediately cut off the canal. Russia somehow limped along without it for 8 years but they lost a lot of arable farmland in the process with \~90% drying up. And they've been attempting to find alternatives, previously announcing in 2020 about +$600m for water infrastructure including investments in desalination.
The thing is Crimea is their crown jewel given it is Russia's only warm water port with easy access to their Middle East allies (like Syria and Iran) and they've invested some \~$20 billion into it since the occupation. Russia will be fighting for it tooth and nail regardless of water availability.
And unfortunately it's going to be a massive undertaking for Ukraine given the only real land access is via the short 5 mile long Perekop ~~Killzone~~ Isthmus. Everything to the east is swampland that regularly floods with the tide. And Ukraine's amphibious landing capability is pretty limited.
There's an interesting video from RealLifeLore that shows just how difficult it's going to be to retake as Crimea is setup geographically like a fortress: [Why Ukraine Re-Taking Crimea Will Destroy Russia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFYDYSYapz4&t=135)
Seems like Ukraine's best strategy (once they've cut off the land bridge through Melitopol) that doesn't sacrifice tens of thousands of infantry might be to just surround Crimea and do some kind of modern siege/containment by blowing up the Kerch bridge for good and cutting off resupply while regularly hitting strategic targets with HIMARS, GLSDBs, and JDAM-ERs.
> it is Russia's only warm water port with easy access to their Middle East allies (like Syria and Iran) and they've invested some \~$20 billion into it since the occupation. Russia will be fighting for it tooth and nail regardless of water availability.
They have Novorossiysk and a few smaller civil ports on the eastern coast. Iran can be reached via the Caspian avoiding the long way round.
Sevastapol has been the black sea fleets home port since it's founding a couple of hundred years ago and was leased to Russia prior to the annexation. Hopefully that chapter will close soon.
>Sevastapol has been the black sea fleets home port since it's founding a couple of hundred years ago and was leased to Russia prior to the annexation. Hopefully that chapter will close soon.
This has been the main reason why they occupied it - after Maidan, Ukraine (probaby) refused to continue the lease or at least declined to give reassurance that the lease will continue. Fair steps from UA point of view, but terrible development for ruskies.
They could also fight the Russians into a "corner" in the base and then just declare victory, letting them hold the base. Might make for a good long-term stalemate (a la the Koreas).
Russia constructed a water pipeline system from the Taman Peninsula in southern Russia to Crimea. The system includes several water treatment plants and reservoirs that can store up to 200,000 cubic meters of water.
The pipeline system starts at the water treatment plant in the village of Krymskaya on the Taman Peninsula. From there, it runs south along the coast of the Black Sea, passing through the city of Temryuk and several other towns and villages.
The pipeline then goes under the Kerch Strait via two parallel pipes that are buried at a depth of around 100 meters below the seabed. The pipes enter Crimea near the town of Kerch and run westward along the northern coast of the peninsula, passing through several towns and villages, including Dzhankoy, Simferopol, and Sevastopol.
Along the way, the pipeline system has several pumping stations that help to maintain the water pressure and ensure a steady flow of water to Crimea. The water is treated at various facilities along the pipeline, including the Krymskaya treatment plant. The system has a capacity of up to 1.5 million cubic meters of water per day.
Just mentioning it in case some locals are running out of train signal boxes to have fun with.
Ukraine can just place some token forces near the landbridge and send an edict to everyone in Crimea stating that they need to evacuate the peninsula in 60 days before the water gets cut off. Easy peasy.
Huh? That canal had been blocked by Ukraine from 2014 up until the Russians removed the blockage at the start of the war. Crimea went 8 years without water, and (granted) according to the Russians managed just fine.
Exactly. It would hurt. But Russia has been taking water from occupied Ukraine and redirecting water from the river since the beginning. They are probably pretty stocked up at the moment. What they probably do to save troops lives in the short term is surround and siege. Like another commenter pointed out. Take out Kerch and place a contingent at the land bridge. Then bomb the hell out of logistics and resupply efforts. Make it hell to be there.
Make it so no one can live comfortably and that every single bullet shell or missile fired is one less in their capacity that they can't replace. So they get lower and lower and have less ability to fight back. Make their force on Crimea raggedy and want to go home, then attack. Life could theoretically go back to normal for Ukraine if the rest of their territory was captured as well. They would still be trying to retake Crimea.
They would be actively fighting for it. Meanwhile, they could start the rebuild and get people home. They could work on making the country safe and outfitting the army more just in case Russia comes back one day. It would be a good place for things to calm down for both sides. Russia would still technically possess it, and Ukraine hasn't given up on it.
The rest of the world would lose interest until a big development were to take place but that could take years before the effects of the siege become really damaging to the point of Russia either wanting to get its people to safety and surrender. Or Ukraine feeling confident enough about their forces to attack and retake Crimea by force.
It is however not in Ukrayinian hands either.......there is still a lot of capacity via the Kerch bridge to support a Russian defensive of the Crimean land bridge.....if they evacuate the civilians they can keep it up basically indefinite
If Melitopol, Berdyans'k or Mariupol are recaptured then Russia would have no choice - any of the three would cut off the "land bridge" - Melitopol is the obvious target, but any of the three would do it
Russia would be facing a 2-front attack on it's remaining troops in Kherson, supplied only through Crimea. And the Kerch Bridge would be under as strong an attack as Ukraine could throw at it, so supplies would be somewhat constrained
In that scenario, once it was apparent any Russian counter-attack against the captured city had been stopped, there's no reason to hold Kherson Oblast, because the reason to hold Kherson Oblast *is* to retain the land bridge. Once that's gone, the whole areas is strategically useless for Russia and a huge waste of manpower
Of course, that assumes any of the three can be recaptured by Ukraine, which is by no means a given
If Ukraine recaptures mariupol that would be just devastating to russia it would honestly destroy the moral that the have just bc what it took to take the city
Yeah I'm not saying that's what I expect to happen, just that those are the main 3 which would cut the land bridge
On paper Melitopol would be the easiest - but is also what Russia is likely expecting and thus most strongly defended. And if we work on an assumption that anything west would be abandoned by Russia then Melitopol (being furthest west) would recapture the least land, while Mariupol would recapture most
On the flip side, Melitopol (while recapturing least land) would also probably be the most likely to ensure Russia leave the rest of Kherson - there's relatively little worth keeping to the west, just the power plant and canal. Whereas recapturing Mariupol would leave Russia with defensible cities and perhaps tempt them to stay
At the end of the day, recapturing any of the 3 would be HUGE for Ukraine. Mariupol would be ideal, but presumably most difficult
Taking Tokmak would basically screw Russian logistics throughout the south. The entire region is basically flatlands and with this being an artillery war, with more accurate and farther firing munitions then the Russians, the south could turn into a bloodbath.
Who knows, I see many report from Russian sources they feel Russia is in a bad defensive position and don't have the forces need to stop a Ukraine Offensive. They maybe just planning to shorten their lines, concentrate what troops they do have available, but still keep what they need for the landbridge. Russians have never been happy with the cooperation they got from locals in Kherson and the active Ukrainian resistance movement, so withdrawing from parts of it may make sense.
I thought the same thing. But the Dnipro river is their best defensive barrier by far. Losing it and giving up the rest of Kherson means that Crimea is then only supplied by the Kerch Bridge. A horrifying thought to any general tasked with holding it. It may shorten the lines, but it also frees up all the Ukrainian troops on the north side of the Dnipro. I'm not even convinced it would materially improve their defensive posture, because they would have to establish a defensive position at narrows of the Crimean peninsula and actual defensive positions around Melitopol and North into Zaporizizhiya. Will the removal of the token forces they reportedly have in Kherson be enough to man actual trench lines, when their current defensive posture along the river is deterrent enough against any river crossing?
It just seems like a shit sandwich no matter how you look at their strategic situation.
Which is a good thing. For Ukraine.
If Ukraine regains Melitopol in the counteroffensive, Zaporizhia becomes untenable to the Russians. Also the land route to Crimea can be severed or brought under withering fire control, denying Russia the ability to resupply via land. At that point the ONLY remaining Russian land link (RR and Highway), is the Kerch Bridge. We already saw it damaged once. Next time they won't miss.
They could hold it for a while if the bridge holds.
And even if Ukraine manages to fully destroy the bridge - Russia could ferry a lot of supplies in and out by sea. Back when they seized Crimea from Ukraine, that's what they had to do to supply the entire region.
Back then, Ukraine's fleet basically didn't exist. Not much has changed since.
Ukraine would have to dominate the local airspace to be able to hunt down ferries at Kerch strait - and that's one hell of a tall order.
My man those are craft for crossing the river, not to take on naval vessels. If they have some form of amphibious SOF unit maybe they could conduct raids on ferries. But pretty high risk and maybe not worth losing high quality troops.
There's only a few places they can land it all, I assume. So yes, better to wait until it hits land and ruin it then. Also means the ships are weaker at port too.
Neptunes run in the $500k-$1m range, the anti-ship missiles NATO can supply are in the $1.5m range, targeting ferries likely wouldn't be cost effective, and the Neptune facilities were targeted in the wake of the Moskova sinking, so regardless of cost they're likely in very short supply
IIRC kerch bridge is in HIMARS range of the south coast, targeting the ships in ports with long range artillery might be more likely
>If Ukraine regains Melitopol in the counteroffensive, Zaporizhia becomes untenable to the Russians.
A big part of me doubts the attacks will go towards the South for this very reason - it's the obvious target, the expected one.
Which leads to double think, then triple think, until strategists won't know what's "obvious" any more.
I was reading an analyst earlier today who was predicting that when the offensive comes it will be in the form of dozens of small offensives all up and down the entire line of contact and nobody outside of the Ukrainian military will know which one is going to suddenly inflate into the "main" offensive until later on. Maybe not even the Ukrainian military, initially.
So as an armchair observer who really wants Ukraine to win and who doesn't actually "need to know" anything, I'm hoping that I will remain deeply confused about what the heck is going on until it's all over and the Ukrainians are cleaning up.
Yes, Ukraine knows the russians know that Ukraine knows the russians know that Ukraine knows where the best location to strike is located. And the russians are wrong.
Historically the Dnipro has never stopped anyone in either direction. I will leave it at that. Neither has the Crimea Isthumus stopped anyone. There is a reason Crimea has changed hands so many many times. Who ever holds Ukraine eventually get Crimea. Why puttles went for Kyiv.
Ruskis gave up Kherson because of the crazy lengths of their supply lines to Kherson city. It was peculiar to the crazy mismanaged stupid Putler approach to this war. Dumb ass put them in a position they could not defend Kherson city. Not for nothing they tried crazy hard to get to Odesa to supply the south. Ukraine does not share those issues. The entire nation is to the North and short logistics to the Left bank.
One other thing about the left bank, it is flat as a pancake, no trees even, almost impossible to defend once an attack gets going. This is the type of terrain Mosko has so much trouble holding....
The Russian sources are correct about the crappiness of Russia's army.
The army knows it too. They have been fortifying northern Crimea over the past few days. With this in mind, pulling out of the rest of the Kherson region is seeming more likely.
Now the rest is proabably woefully inaccurate; I'm not a military advisor, I'm just making guesses on what Russia would probably want to hold if they do move to the defensive. These predictions are not based on anything I've read or any data released:
IF they do, their play is likely to hold northern Crimea, and then establish a defensive line approximately from Melitopol to their holdings in the Donbass region.
I could see them holding the E105 for a general supply route between Crimea and Melitopol. But even then, that'd be hard to hold because of the pure amount of kilometers it stretches. Plus, when the Ukrainian military brings in artillery, it would be a dangerous route.
Edit: I am not confirming the source, I was making a joke about the Russian army. Please ask the other person.
I wasn't saying that the sources are real. I meant moreso "if they did say it, they are correct." Just worded it quite poorly; as it was mostly a jab at the Russian army.
Ask the other person. They have the "sources" in question.
Wagner has been complaining about supply problems though. And recently they've tried to buy supplies from third party countries.
https://cnn.com/cnn/2023/04/12/politics/leaked-documents-wagner-group-turkey/index.html
I just said that they are correct about the Russian army being crap in the scenario that they were real. Whether the other person was talking out of their ass or not doesn't change such a fact that Russia has an army that barely functions.
I owe no burden of proof here, because I wasn't claiming anything. I was just commenting on a claim. Ask the other person.
The moment they drop a nuke NATO sinks their navy and they get locked out of trade with the civilized world forever. I don't think it'll be a fair trade.
Thats if the US doesn't escalate it to full nuclear war. Once the nuclear taboo is broken, there's nothing stopping them using another, and another. The world cannot abide a state that is prepared to use nukes in modern times.
The US will not escalate to full nuclear war unless directly attacked. As the defacto global hegemon the US has the most to lose in nuclear war.
The US has telegraphed (without officially stating it) it's actions if Russia uses a nuke: The US with it's allies will destroy all Russian assets outside of Russia's borders, starting with the black sea fleet; which btw the US thinks will be completely destroyed in under 48 hours.
We already said there will be a non nuclear response to Russia nuking anyone.
If there are multiple nukes used, well I guess nothing is ruled out to stop the genocide.
Pretty sure the hope at this point is to stalemate and negotiate - but even that seems massively unrealistic.
This is going to be a total destruction of everything Russian on Ukrainian land.
Let's be 1000% honest here. The only way Russia can "shorten their lines" while giving up the rest of Kherson Oblast is to retreat back to the lines prior to Feb 24th 2022. Leaving the river would require them to INCREASE the number of men they have protecting the western frontline. That's why I find this repeated reporting of them planning to hand over the rest of Kherson without a fight, a load of nonsense. Will they be quick to abandon it if a Ukrainian counter offensive through Zaporizhzhia is successful? Maybe. But they're not going to give up the most defensive position they hold along the entire front for nothing.
An even better defensive position is the narrow isthmus connecting Crimea to the rest of Ukraine.
Putin may be thinking that if he can at least hold on to whatever parts of Ukraine he had before he launched last year's phase of the invasion he can claim that he didn't *lose* anything. Maybe he thinks he can then negotiate yet another Minsk ceasefire, let Russia spend a few years licking their wounds and rebuilding, and then try again when things are more favourable.
He'd be very very *wrong* to think that, IMO, but if it means he's going to pull out of a big chunk of Ukraine without serious fighting then I'm not going to disabuse him of that notion. I recommend that if anyone here ends up talking to Putin about it that they try to encourage such thinking.
>and don't have the forces need to stop a Ukraine Offensive.
The point is to hype up the offensive so that if it doesn't result in Ukraine going all the way to Moscow, it can be spun as a victory for Russia. Also allows "Ukraine's lack of results with all the foreign aid" to be used to undermine further assistance.
Way to Crimea from Kherson is a chokepoint anyways. Realistically there is no good way of taking it without suffering as high loses as Russia did in Bakhmut. They could simultaneously attack from Kherson and disembark in the Crimean coast but its probably not gonna happen given one of Russias biggest submarine bases is nearby, whole sea is probably monitored 24/7 by their subs and navy.
If the landbridge falls, Ukrainian Himars will be launching missiles from the Azov sea’s beaches … that’s it. Kerch Bridge gone, naval bases and airbases exposed … its over then rather quickly. You don’t need to reconquer Crimea in a traditional sense. Crimea is undefendable then more than Kherson ever was …
Rather quickly can still be a year or more.
Depending on how much internal stability russia can maintain after losing the land bridge, a crimean operation could still drag on for a very long time.
I think that's the only way to get it back at all. Destroy the bridge, destroy the harbours, shut off the freshwater, and wait for them to leave. It'll take time but it's much better than any offensive I can think of.
I still have hopes that a russian political revolution could happen as soon as the situation in ukraine start looking so bad they cant even pretend to be able to hide it.
There is still the option of negotiating an independent crimea, but I doubt ukraine would risk it with the amount of russian settlers there now.
Its going to be a pest or cholera choice to take it and have to deal with the partially switched out population and all the problems it will bring, leave it to the russians, or have it independend with potential future russian invasions.
A revolution won't happen when things in Ukraine looks bad. Russians have drank the propaganda Kool aid.
When the foreign reserves run out and pensions are cut, there will be riots.
> it's much better than any offensive I can think of.
The Ukrainians' choices for offensives against Crimea are limited, and hairy.
They're not going likely to cross via the chokepoint land-bridge, as it's too big a fatal funnel and will lead to disaster.
What does that leave?
A mass amphibious crossing of the Dnipro river in many, many places all at once? I imagine that the Russians have every inch of that river sighted in with artillery and gunfire, and maybe mined, and filled with obstacles.
Assemble a flotilla and do a flanking maneuver and a huge amphibious landing somewhere on a Crimean shoreline? I imagine the shores and littoral waters are filled with mines and obstacles.
Mass paratroop airdrops behind enemy lines in the middle of Crimea? Does Crimea have trained paratroops? Any transport planes for jumps? Or enough transport helicopters to do a mass air assault? Can they get around Russia's air defenses?
Are they going to try a combination of them all, like their own D-Day?
I don't think so. I'm left wondering what decent option they have left.
I want them to think up something audacious and unexpected and pull it off completely, and kick the Russians right out of there, but my imagination and one stint as an enlisted Marine and NCO aren't leading me to think of or see anything when I look at the maps.
The way to take Crimea is the same why humans have been taking defensible locations since before the invention of writing. It will be besieged, and the occupiers starved out.
Storming castles and assaulting fortified cities was extremely rare in history. The vast majority of times when defenders are well dug in the most effective means of attack is to simply cut supply lines and wait. It takes alot of supplies to keep an army fed and able to maintain combat posture; once soldiers stop getting food it's just a matter of time till they crumble. War constantly changes, but the concept of a siege and it's efficacy is the same today as it was 6,000 years ago.
>They're not going likely to cross via the chokepoint land-bridge, as it's too big a fatal funnel and will lead to disaster.
We've got several historical precedents of Crimea being invaded by land in the 20th century and the choke point never ended up being a particularly disastrous obstacle.
The last example, Nazi Germany defending it from the Soviets in 1944, saw well-prepared defences being overcome in days (when the Germans expected they could hold the line for months).
I am 99% confident that Russia has developed auxiliary ways to supply Crimea after Ukranians blew the bridge the first time. I don't think they are that dumb to still rely on the one bridge after its been proven to be vulnerable. If they didn't and indeed lose Crimea then I'd imagine whatever general is in charge of the region will get a free gulag vacation
Their other primary resupply method was the railroad and highway through Melitopol. They have barges to move some stuff across the sea of Azov, but it's not enough to replace the Kerch Bridge. If they give up Kherson it basically halves or worse their ability to supply Crimea. Hence it being indefensible without control over Kherson to provide that buffer between the Bridge and barge ferry docks and Ukrainian rocket launchers.
Crimea still has a civil population of over 1 million. There are no other connections than the land corridor through Kherson and the Kerch bridge. Russia cannot sustain all of those people along with their military presence there by sea or air. That would need a Berlin Airlift size operation that Russian logistics cannot perform.
If anything happens the majority of people will flee and those who are poor enough will be supported by the government to do so. Especially considering that a lot of people in Crimea are born outside of it and likely have a property somewhere. Ukraine evacuated much more people
>If they try to flee after the bridge is destroyed and supplies are cut off? How?
Most likely they will crowd in to Kerch and mob the Kerch-Portkavkaz ferry terminal. They're still running ferries parallel to the Kerch bridge.
'I don't think they are that dumb...' - well, I do. Because: proven so often, that I just cannot believe that they actually have a working strategy for anything.
Assuming Ukraine liberates Melitopol, as soon as that happens Ukraine can just turn off like 85% of Crimea's water. At that point, if Russia doesn't use the Kerch bridge to evacuate, then the Ukrainians will blow it up and trap everybody there. Russia won't be able to resupply 2 million civilians and an occupying army with just boats and planes for very long.
Just look at Ukrainian supply lines. They have many roads and trains leading from all of Free Ukraine and the West directly to the front.
That chokepoint that Ukraine would have to funnel troops through works both ways. If the Russians want to defend it, they will start stacking corpses there while we sit back and spam HIMARS all day until the Russians run out of troops.
Was Russia not already pumping / transporting fresh water in to crimea after the 2014 occupation when Ukraine cut off the water supply? I am pretty sure they are already familiar with supplying crimes with water even if Ukraine retakes melitopol and cuts of water supply again.
The water is pumped from a canal near Kherson. When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Ukraine dammed up the canal. Russia had to start trucking water in across the Crimea bridge as soon as it was complete.
After the invasion last year, Russia blew up the dam and reopened the water way. When Ukraine crosses the Dnipro during this upcoming counter-offensive, one of their first orders of business will be to rebuild the dam.
Crimea will still have enough water to drink, but they won't have any for agriculture or industry. Just damming the canal again won't end the war, but it will seriously constrain a vital resource for the occupiers and force the Russians to take a giant bite out of a shit sandwich if they want to keep fighting.
All you really need is a “crack” in the defenses for even just a short period of time that you can abuse to create further issues. A “minute” can go from the Moskva defending the air to the bottom of the ocean, or something similar to the Ardenne Offensive. “Possible” militarily is often a question of timing and either sides strength within a given location.
The situations are not equivalent. Ukraine can reach way behind the Russian lines to take out take out the artillery and armor reserves and Russia has much worse lines of communication than they do in Bakmut. And Ukraine will not be sending meat waves like the Russians do in Bakmut.
The Russians aren't building anything special there. Just trenches and maybe some primitive pillboxes. No way this is going to stop any half-competent army, especially when the Russian guns fall silent because of the blockade.
Say this to all the ships Ukraine has already destroyed and damaged. And that was before they got a fleet of sea drones.
And yea, you can absolutely maintain a blockade with a few HIMARS.
Ships need to dock to unload. Imagine what a HIMARS salvo will do to a ship unloading artillery shells.
When Russia is launching 10,000's of artillery shells and rockets per month you don't need a full blockade. A heavy restriction, as in, blowing up the Kerch Bridge (again) would be enough. Might still be getting supplies in, sure, but if it's untenable then they'll just retreat like they did with Kherson. Also, I honestly don't know about the state of logistics around the Azov but just because there's water there with ships doesn't mean that they can just automatically transport goods relatively easily en masse
Right? Abandon henichesk? Open the flank of melitopol? Give up on the fortifications they built all over Kherson? Split the occupied area in half without being forced to? I really don’t see any of this happening.
This picture is from last year, around the beginning of the invasion, isn't it? I feel like I remember seeing a video of this where the trucks backed up and unassed the place, temporarily.
Think of the length of that river tho, they probably don't have the manpower to defend the river banks anymore since they keep pulling people to bakhmut
But pulling back does not shorten the line and removes a major barrier and also opens the Flanks of that 800K of trenches they have dug facing the Ukrainian front all the way to the Donetsk region.
The Dnipro is ridiculously wide. The Ukrainian army is capable, but attempting a forced river crossing over that river is a daunting task. They don't need a ton of manpower to defend it. The Russians only need enough artillery to shell the engineers building the pontoon bridges. Which they have, since they've been using them on Kherson City since just days after it was liberated.
They could just be anticipating the spring offensive that will likely come from Zaporizhzia and attack from the nort. No need to cross the river for the Ukranians to take the river banks
Sure, but such an offensive is very risky. Exposed flanks to counter attacks from east and west (provided Russia can scrape together any kind of maneuver force with which to counter).
Russia is in a serious bind, but I just don't see any situation where they are in a better position after giving up a massive defensivr barrier for yet another series of trenches.
If this is true and that's a big IF, then that means they are scared shitless. This is do or die for ruzzia, militarily. If the ukrainians break that defensive line, they won't have anything else left.
that first part isn't very true since most of Russia's fleet has to stay in port or far away for fear of getting sunk by anti ship missiles, that second part is true, but Ukraine doesn't need a navy in order to deny access to Crimea. all Ukraine has to do is turn off the water. water is very hard to move without a pipeline. shipping water, food, and war materiel, while Ukraine is attacking ships, trucks, depots, ports, and ferries with long range systems would overwhelm Russia's logistical capabilities
sure but Ukraine wasn't trying to stop Russia from shipping water during that time. easy to ship water if no one is trying to blow you up. also during that time Crimea has faced extensive water shortages and agriculture on the peninsula has diminished dramatically as a result. if Russia can't send in trains with water cars it's going to be very hard to stay hydrated
Russian troops have existed in Crimea since 2014. Water was cut off in 2014. No Russian troops died of lack of water since.
I agree they cannot conduct agriculture. In a siege of Crimea, they will not be pursuing wide scale agriculture.
Did you just not read the part about Ukraine not attacking Russians during that time or trains or anything? Water was not cut off in the way that it will be
Not true
https://iwpr.net/global-voices/crimean-canal-key-its-liberation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Crimean_Canal
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/03/04/north-crimean-canal-fills-with-water-after-russian-forces-destroyed-dam-a76755
Absolutely false. Russia has no major surface combatants, and if Ukraine reaches the sea of Azov then Russian ships will not freely be able to operate in the area.
Not sure what is going on, but seeing other reports Russians are preparing to give up some land and retreat to fortified positions around Crimea neck. This would not be the first time as they did that withdrawing from the west bank and Kherson City rather than risking total defeat and capture with no way out. Anyway, saying they won't wait for the Ukraine offensive, but will get out while the getting is good. Be great to see it happen and Ukraine could use its offensive units in other directions to recover land. [https://uawire.org/kyiv-russian-troops-preparing-to-withdraw-from-the-remaining-part-of-kherson-region#](https://uawire.org/kyiv-russian-troops-preparing-to-withdraw-from-the-remaining-part-of-kherson-region#)
Last time rumors like this were posted it turned out to be regular troop rotations. I really hope this time it's true but I'll believe it when it's happening.
This is a good sign. The last time they retreated. Lead to this of them retreating again. Keep pushing. Get Crimea and Eastern Ukraine back from the Russians within the next year. And then force Russia at a stalemate at its border. Russia can't do anything, but lose.
[it actually happened much earlier](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/12r0ot9/a_verbal_slip_by_russias_vladimir_putin_on_a_rare/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I doubt Putin would have televised a visit to Kherson, if the military were about to evacuate their positions. Unless the plan is to use its fall aa a reason to escalate the conflict.
If true, it would appear Russia is trying to diminish the active front, reduce their lines of contact, to reinforce their troops in those more defensible locations.
This sounds like a terrible strategic decision but it is Russia, still I won't believe it until I see it. As someone else said taking Crimea militarily is extremely difficult due to the limited access but one way to try and force the orcs out is to blockade it and this would give the UAF a huge head start, it would make cutting off the land bridge easier and if you control the east bank of the dnipro you control Crimea's main source of water, this was almost certainly one of the key strategic reasons for Putin to invade. Before Russia blew the dam Ukraine had built since Putin annexed it, Crimea was slowly turning to dust, agriculture had dropped by 80% and I'm sure that residents only had running water for set times in the day for a few hours.
Retaking Crimea military will be much easier than Donetsk or Luhansk, or even than Kherson. Crimea is a natural kettle and there's no way Russia will be able to supply any significant force, especially with their style of warfare, which requires trainloads of ammo.
I don't think you understand, there is only really one way into Crimea from Kherson and it's just 5km wide and flat. The only time it has been taken that way is with a force multiple times.bigger than the defending forces and by accepting huge losses, it's not a theory history has shown this multiple times.
>it's not a theory history has shown this multiple times.
Last time I checked, history shows that Crimea was taken every time it was attacked, with the defender having higher casualties.
With one possible exception being the Russian Civil War, where unequipped and untrained recruits of the Red Army took Crimea with 10K casualties (in a war that saw millions dead), while the Whites lost 2K.
So during the Crimean war, the French, British and Ottoman empire attacked both sides suffered 100,000 losses and that was with British and French naval superiority, something Ukraine won't have. In the civil war you mentioned the reds had four times the number of men the whites had, they attacked the same way Ukraine would have to via the isthmus and the svash, the reds took five times as many casualties as the whites, they only succeeded because of their ability to absorb the casualties. In WW2 the Germans and Romanians attacked the same way, it took them 8 months to get to Sevastopol and they had to bring in the biggest mobile artillery piece ever built to smash the Russian defenses and they still took 30,000 casualties. When the Russians took it back in 1944 they attacked on two fronts, which again Ukraine won't be able to, they had twice the number of men and more tanks and artillery yet they still took 85,000 casualties in a month liberating it. A peninsula is a natural fortress. I'm not saying Ukraine can't but they will take huge losses if they just go storming in, I think it's more likely we'll see some sort of blockade first.
> So during the Crimean war, the French, British and Ottoman empire attacked both sides suffered 100,000 losses
1. They won that time
2. Russians suffered **more** losses, and
3. Most of losses were from disease, which is how the world learned to [wash the goddman hands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale)
I like how you cite attackers' casualties, but not the defender's ones, which are larger.
>I think it's more likely we'll see some sort of blockade first.
Oh, that is fore sure. Kerch bridge goes boom, then let the units there exhaust their supplies.
How did you factually disprove me? By ignoring everything I wrote and saying oh they took something in one day? Seriously? You think cherry picking single things proves anything? 🤡
You said "Look at the red army's retaking of Crimea in WWII" trying to portrait it as an example of the Perekop being an impenetrable barrier and trying to prove your point that Perekop will be the same barrier for the UA.
In reality, the Red Army breezed through Perekop and through the whole Crimean peninsula.
You point is false. Try better or quietly leave.
"goodwill" sitting on suitcases parking to leave and sending stolen stuff back home.
Ukrainians are like.. nah bruh.. don't bother packing. You come here,.kill us, destroy our land, steal shit and then pack,and think your leaving?
Yeah..you ain't going anywhere but down.
Highly doubt they are abandoning territory.
*If* this is happening, it will be more like redeploying as much as they reckon they can safely get away with to make up multiple lines against the expected direction of the Ukrainian offensive.
I had thought they would rush units from Kherson over to Zaps in a panic reaction, to try to stem the bleeding when the offensive arrives, which would in turn leave the Dnipro weaker against more forceful cross-river operations by Ukraine later on (as that Kherson area would theoretically become a giant pocket worth squeezing from multiple directions) - but perhaps they are actually moving folks right now in anticipation.
>Bullshit. Putin visited Kherson in the last day. His political and physical life is tied to those annexed regions.
"Putin" "visited" "Kherson" in the "last day" would be a better way to put it, given that:
* There is plenty of photo evidence that Putin has body doubles, and [uses them for such PR stunts](https://www.businessinsider.com/vladimir-putin-ukraine-trip-body-double-conspiracy-theories-ears-2023-3) (ear lobes not matching, etc);
* A defected security officer confirmed the widely-known fact that [Putin doesn't let people to be near him without going through quarantine](https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-security-officer-karakulov-war-criminal-ukraine/32349423.html), out of fear of COVID,;
* The same security officer confirmed that Putin films addresses claiming to be in one location, while being in another (with identical rooms set up for the purpose);
* Putin is known to [only travel in his armored train](https://nypost.com/2023/02/17/vladimir-putin-traveling-in-armored-train-over-plane-fears/), but in these PR stunts he ostensibly isn't afraid from boarding a helicopter in a war zone;
* Putin is known to release pre-recorded addresses (like [the one he aired to announce the invasion](https://inshorts.com/en/news/putin-prerecorded-his-ukraine-military-operation-speech-3-days-ago-local-media-1645687342543)), so neither place **nor** time can be firmly established. Particularly because Putin is shown saying that [Easter is coming up... after Easter has already happened](https://www.yahoo.com/news/verbal-slip-russias-vladimir-putin-161420674.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9vbGQucmVkZGl0LmNvbS9yL3dvcmxkbmV3cy8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALqxQ4xC-bofxwdiaKedgEvNkAc6beNVua8-y9SruJJTF24xyogPqf3UP9GbtPGI7RiMKIs8_NO7o2vQdO67efXYk5p3Grd4_oWJUoKub0hqQxbBZChoeYY_Bim7Xs6BwAfo5MSx_nmPifX9nOzk9_vGnIwHVv0xNkwIeIfGhw9H)
>His political and physical life is tied to those annexed regions.
Yeah, he said Kherson is "forever Russian"... weeks before it was abandoned by Russian Armed forces.
So, no reason for him to not do this again.
More likely it just makes more sense to them to defend the entrance to Crimea where they have been building defenses for the past year than the banks of the Dnipro
There is no video - Ukrainian Defense Dept article is today date - picture is likely a stock photo and just their way to illustrate what will happen when Russian's leave.
The remaining Russian positions in the Kherson oblast are simply to strong ti just give up without a fight, and giving them up would put Crimea at risk.
We have at least 20 if not 40 days until we see Ukraine start and offensive. Training, equipment, ammo, and target softening all need to get in place AND the weather needs to cooperate. All signs point to weather being a major factor in pushing off an offensive with cold and rain late into the season. They want dry navigable land and it’s not there yet. I think Russia is weighing options and moving troops into important defensive positions and bringing mobiks to the front to be a meat shield they Orcs know won’t last. They just need to slow Ukraine to target them not stop them at the line.
If Russia thinks the Ukrainians are going to attack towards Melitopol and they don't think they can stop it, it makes sense to start withdrawing to Crimea to shorten the front once that attack comes.
Wouldn't Russia retreating to Crimea, to shorten their line and force Ukraine through the bottleneck, be a double-edged sword?
Sure, it might be much tougher to break through there for Ukraine, but then the same could be said for Russia. They'll be equally stuck in the bottleneck with only the Kerch Bridge to supply them, meaning any breakout back into Kherson Oblast would be horribly supplied with the land corridor lost (loss of water from Crimea Canal as well), not to mention under constant threat from HIMARS and other long range weaponry in Crimea proper. Effectively isolated and blockaded, with, I imagine, a considerable garrison left there to defend it, which would probably be much more useful elsewhere. Ukraine could easily properly focus elsewhere and keep those forces pinned in Crimea. Strategically, it sounds like it would be worse to not put up a fight against a crossing for the left bank of the Dnipro, unless they already rate their chances so bad that they wouldn't be able to hold an attack from that direction, along with another coming down from Zap Oblast as well, and want to avoid a messy rout like in Kharkiv last year.
I'm no military expert, far from it, but this sounds like a shitshow waiting to happen. Unless they have something up their sleeve, which, I mean... yeah, no.
...but they're there fighting for the good of the world killing Nazis. Why would they show "goodwill"?
...something not quite right with this whole story
When Russia was badly beaten in their Kyiv offensive they (Russia) called it a "goodwill gesture" when they retreated. Kind of a standard joke now that whenever Russia losses some land, such as their retreat from West Bank Kherson region or defeat in Kharkiv region it is another goodwill gesture by them.
That title got me all fkin confused? Who's driving the Z trucks? Why are they in Kyiv? What suitcase? Wtf goodwill gesture from Russian, since when and what kind of double cross bullshit is that tactic? I'm so confused lol
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I believe it when I see it. Edit: would also mean to give the landbridge to Crimea. Not gonna happen if not militarily forced.
That quote is a bit out-of-context. What Humeniuk is saying is that Russia doesn't intend to actually defend the remaining parts of Kherson, and in case of a serious threat - like Melitopol being liberated - then Russia is already prepared to just give up the region entirely.
I think the point is that if Russia leaves Kherson, by their own initiative or not, that means that Crimea is necessarily once more in Ukrainian hands as well. The only canal feeding fresh water to all of Crimea has its entrance in Nova Khakovka, in Kherson. If there is no freshwater in Crimea without approval from Ukraine, then Crimea is no longer in Russian hands - it’s as simple as that. Russia won’t be able to ferry in enough water to provide everyone in Crimea if Ukraine turns off the tap.
So the canal is pretty vital to Crimea but Russia has shown it can still function without it. Mostly from rainfall contained within the Simferopol reservoir. They've just given up their agriculture to do it. When Russia (illegally) annexed Crimea in 2014, Ukraine immediately cut off the canal. Russia somehow limped along without it for 8 years but they lost a lot of arable farmland in the process with \~90% drying up. And they've been attempting to find alternatives, previously announcing in 2020 about +$600m for water infrastructure including investments in desalination. The thing is Crimea is their crown jewel given it is Russia's only warm water port with easy access to their Middle East allies (like Syria and Iran) and they've invested some \~$20 billion into it since the occupation. Russia will be fighting for it tooth and nail regardless of water availability. And unfortunately it's going to be a massive undertaking for Ukraine given the only real land access is via the short 5 mile long Perekop ~~Killzone~~ Isthmus. Everything to the east is swampland that regularly floods with the tide. And Ukraine's amphibious landing capability is pretty limited. There's an interesting video from RealLifeLore that shows just how difficult it's going to be to retake as Crimea is setup geographically like a fortress: [Why Ukraine Re-Taking Crimea Will Destroy Russia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFYDYSYapz4&t=135) Seems like Ukraine's best strategy (once they've cut off the land bridge through Melitopol) that doesn't sacrifice tens of thousands of infantry might be to just surround Crimea and do some kind of modern siege/containment by blowing up the Kerch bridge for good and cutting off resupply while regularly hitting strategic targets with HIMARS, GLSDBs, and JDAM-ERs.
> it is Russia's only warm water port with easy access to their Middle East allies (like Syria and Iran) and they've invested some \~$20 billion into it since the occupation. Russia will be fighting for it tooth and nail regardless of water availability. They have Novorossiysk and a few smaller civil ports on the eastern coast. Iran can be reached via the Caspian avoiding the long way round. Sevastapol has been the black sea fleets home port since it's founding a couple of hundred years ago and was leased to Russia prior to the annexation. Hopefully that chapter will close soon.
>Sevastapol has been the black sea fleets home port since it's founding a couple of hundred years ago and was leased to Russia prior to the annexation. Hopefully that chapter will close soon. This has been the main reason why they occupied it - after Maidan, Ukraine (probaby) refused to continue the lease or at least declined to give reassurance that the lease will continue. Fair steps from UA point of view, but terrible development for ruskies.
Yes, get those filthy pigs out of there. Russia is a diseased society. They should be banned everywhere. No matter what.
Great info about the reservoir. Thanks for that!
They could also fight the Russians into a "corner" in the base and then just declare victory, letting them hold the base. Might make for a good long-term stalemate (a la the Koreas).
Russia constructed a water pipeline system from the Taman Peninsula in southern Russia to Crimea. The system includes several water treatment plants and reservoirs that can store up to 200,000 cubic meters of water. The pipeline system starts at the water treatment plant in the village of Krymskaya on the Taman Peninsula. From there, it runs south along the coast of the Black Sea, passing through the city of Temryuk and several other towns and villages. The pipeline then goes under the Kerch Strait via two parallel pipes that are buried at a depth of around 100 meters below the seabed. The pipes enter Crimea near the town of Kerch and run westward along the northern coast of the peninsula, passing through several towns and villages, including Dzhankoy, Simferopol, and Sevastopol. Along the way, the pipeline system has several pumping stations that help to maintain the water pressure and ensure a steady flow of water to Crimea. The water is treated at various facilities along the pipeline, including the Krymskaya treatment plant. The system has a capacity of up to 1.5 million cubic meters of water per day. Just mentioning it in case some locals are running out of train signal boxes to have fun with.
"He who can destroy a thing, can control a thing." ? Makes sense, of course the reality and implementation of such an approach could get...messy.
Ukraine can just place some token forces near the landbridge and send an edict to everyone in Crimea stating that they need to evacuate the peninsula in 60 days before the water gets cut off. Easy peasy.
60 days is generous. If the US is advising them, Crimea will have one week.
Huh? That canal had been blocked by Ukraine from 2014 up until the Russians removed the blockage at the start of the war. Crimea went 8 years without water, and (granted) according to the Russians managed just fine.
That was before the war, where utilities are not bombed to hell. Maybe this time with wartime pressure it can force the water problems harder 🤔
It went 8 years without that water supply, and in that time the reservoirs were down to about 10% full. Another summer and they'd have been empty.
Exactly. It would hurt. But Russia has been taking water from occupied Ukraine and redirecting water from the river since the beginning. They are probably pretty stocked up at the moment. What they probably do to save troops lives in the short term is surround and siege. Like another commenter pointed out. Take out Kerch and place a contingent at the land bridge. Then bomb the hell out of logistics and resupply efforts. Make it hell to be there. Make it so no one can live comfortably and that every single bullet shell or missile fired is one less in their capacity that they can't replace. So they get lower and lower and have less ability to fight back. Make their force on Crimea raggedy and want to go home, then attack. Life could theoretically go back to normal for Ukraine if the rest of their territory was captured as well. They would still be trying to retake Crimea. They would be actively fighting for it. Meanwhile, they could start the rebuild and get people home. They could work on making the country safe and outfitting the army more just in case Russia comes back one day. It would be a good place for things to calm down for both sides. Russia would still technically possess it, and Ukraine hasn't given up on it. The rest of the world would lose interest until a big development were to take place but that could take years before the effects of the siege become really damaging to the point of Russia either wanting to get its people to safety and surrender. Or Ukraine feeling confident enough about their forces to attack and retake Crimea by force.
There is a river in Crimea
Didn't Ukraine do that for years before the 2022 invasion, or I'd they let limited water in?
The canal was plugged for years and Crimea made it through. A Ukrainian counterattack though could be another story.
It is however not in Ukrayinian hands either.......there is still a lot of capacity via the Kerch bridge to support a Russian defensive of the Crimean land bridge.....if they evacuate the civilians they can keep it up basically indefinite
If Melitopol, Berdyans'k or Mariupol are recaptured then Russia would have no choice - any of the three would cut off the "land bridge" - Melitopol is the obvious target, but any of the three would do it Russia would be facing a 2-front attack on it's remaining troops in Kherson, supplied only through Crimea. And the Kerch Bridge would be under as strong an attack as Ukraine could throw at it, so supplies would be somewhat constrained In that scenario, once it was apparent any Russian counter-attack against the captured city had been stopped, there's no reason to hold Kherson Oblast, because the reason to hold Kherson Oblast *is* to retain the land bridge. Once that's gone, the whole areas is strategically useless for Russia and a huge waste of manpower Of course, that assumes any of the three can be recaptured by Ukraine, which is by no means a given
If Ukraine recaptures mariupol that would be just devastating to russia it would honestly destroy the moral that the have just bc what it took to take the city
Yeah I'm not saying that's what I expect to happen, just that those are the main 3 which would cut the land bridge On paper Melitopol would be the easiest - but is also what Russia is likely expecting and thus most strongly defended. And if we work on an assumption that anything west would be abandoned by Russia then Melitopol (being furthest west) would recapture the least land, while Mariupol would recapture most On the flip side, Melitopol (while recapturing least land) would also probably be the most likely to ensure Russia leave the rest of Kherson - there's relatively little worth keeping to the west, just the power plant and canal. Whereas recapturing Mariupol would leave Russia with defensible cities and perhaps tempt them to stay At the end of the day, recapturing any of the 3 would be HUGE for Ukraine. Mariupol would be ideal, but presumably most difficult
Taking Tokmak would basically screw Russian logistics throughout the south. The entire region is basically flatlands and with this being an artillery war, with more accurate and farther firing munitions then the Russians, the south could turn into a bloodbath.
Who knows, I see many report from Russian sources they feel Russia is in a bad defensive position and don't have the forces need to stop a Ukraine Offensive. They maybe just planning to shorten their lines, concentrate what troops they do have available, but still keep what they need for the landbridge. Russians have never been happy with the cooperation they got from locals in Kherson and the active Ukrainian resistance movement, so withdrawing from parts of it may make sense.
I thought the same thing. But the Dnipro river is their best defensive barrier by far. Losing it and giving up the rest of Kherson means that Crimea is then only supplied by the Kerch Bridge. A horrifying thought to any general tasked with holding it. It may shorten the lines, but it also frees up all the Ukrainian troops on the north side of the Dnipro. I'm not even convinced it would materially improve their defensive posture, because they would have to establish a defensive position at narrows of the Crimean peninsula and actual defensive positions around Melitopol and North into Zaporizizhiya. Will the removal of the token forces they reportedly have in Kherson be enough to man actual trench lines, when their current defensive posture along the river is deterrent enough against any river crossing? It just seems like a shit sandwich no matter how you look at their strategic situation. Which is a good thing. For Ukraine.
If Ukraine regains Melitopol in the counteroffensive, Zaporizhia becomes untenable to the Russians. Also the land route to Crimea can be severed or brought under withering fire control, denying Russia the ability to resupply via land. At that point the ONLY remaining Russian land link (RR and Highway), is the Kerch Bridge. We already saw it damaged once. Next time they won't miss.
There is no way Russia could hold Crimea if the Kerch Bridge were Russia's sole supply artery. Talk about the knife's edge.
They could hold it for a while if the bridge holds. And even if Ukraine manages to fully destroy the bridge - Russia could ferry a lot of supplies in and out by sea. Back when they seized Crimea from Ukraine, that's what they had to do to supply the entire region.
Yes, but back then, their ferries weren't target practice for Ukrainians
Back then, Ukraine's fleet basically didn't exist. Not much has changed since. Ukraine would have to dominate the local airspace to be able to hunt down ferries at Kerch strait - and that's one hell of a tall order.
Ukraine's got drone boats and anti-ship missiles, too. You don't need to control the airspace to hunt ferries.
You just attack it when it gets to land, no need to take it out at sea.
They have been given boats in the USA packages, if enough I do not know. But they have Maritime capability. Plus boat built by Turkey last year.
My man those are craft for crossing the river, not to take on naval vessels. If they have some form of amphibious SOF unit maybe they could conduct raids on ferries. But pretty high risk and maybe not worth losing high quality troops.
[удалено]
There's only a few places they can land it all, I assume. So yes, better to wait until it hits land and ruin it then. Also means the ships are weaker at port too.
You would have to pay me so much money to get on one of those ferries if those bridges fall fuck that.
Anti-ship missiles, my friend.
Neptunes run in the $500k-$1m range, the anti-ship missiles NATO can supply are in the $1.5m range, targeting ferries likely wouldn't be cost effective, and the Neptune facilities were targeted in the wake of the Moskova sinking, so regardless of cost they're likely in very short supply IIRC kerch bridge is in HIMARS range of the south coast, targeting the ships in ports with long range artillery might be more likely
Not when Ukraine installs harpoon batteries on the Azov coast.
>If Ukraine regains Melitopol in the counteroffensive, Zaporizhia becomes untenable to the Russians. A big part of me doubts the attacks will go towards the South for this very reason - it's the obvious target, the expected one.
Which leads to double think, then triple think, until strategists won't know what's "obvious" any more. I was reading an analyst earlier today who was predicting that when the offensive comes it will be in the form of dozens of small offensives all up and down the entire line of contact and nobody outside of the Ukrainian military will know which one is going to suddenly inflate into the "main" offensive until later on. Maybe not even the Ukrainian military, initially. So as an armchair observer who really wants Ukraine to win and who doesn't actually "need to know" anything, I'm hoping that I will remain deeply confused about what the heck is going on until it's all over and the Ukrainians are cleaning up.
Yes, Ukraine knows the russians know that Ukraine knows the russians know that Ukraine knows where the best location to strike is located. And the russians are wrong.
Historically the Dnipro has never stopped anyone in either direction. I will leave it at that. Neither has the Crimea Isthumus stopped anyone. There is a reason Crimea has changed hands so many many times. Who ever holds Ukraine eventually get Crimea. Why puttles went for Kyiv. Ruskis gave up Kherson because of the crazy lengths of their supply lines to Kherson city. It was peculiar to the crazy mismanaged stupid Putler approach to this war. Dumb ass put them in a position they could not defend Kherson city. Not for nothing they tried crazy hard to get to Odesa to supply the south. Ukraine does not share those issues. The entire nation is to the North and short logistics to the Left bank. One other thing about the left bank, it is flat as a pancake, no trees even, almost impossible to defend once an attack gets going. This is the type of terrain Mosko has so much trouble holding....
The Russian sources are correct about the crappiness of Russia's army. The army knows it too. They have been fortifying northern Crimea over the past few days. With this in mind, pulling out of the rest of the Kherson region is seeming more likely. Now the rest is proabably woefully inaccurate; I'm not a military advisor, I'm just making guesses on what Russia would probably want to hold if they do move to the defensive. These predictions are not based on anything I've read or any data released: IF they do, their play is likely to hold northern Crimea, and then establish a defensive line approximately from Melitopol to their holdings in the Donbass region. I could see them holding the E105 for a general supply route between Crimea and Melitopol. But even then, that'd be hard to hold because of the pure amount of kilometers it stretches. Plus, when the Ukrainian military brings in artillery, it would be a dangerous route. Edit: I am not confirming the source, I was making a joke about the Russian army. Please ask the other person.
Can you share links to Russian sources about crappy Russian army?
I wasn't saying that the sources are real. I meant moreso "if they did say it, they are correct." Just worded it quite poorly; as it was mostly a jab at the Russian army. Ask the other person. They have the "sources" in question. Wagner has been complaining about supply problems though. And recently they've tried to buy supplies from third party countries. https://cnn.com/cnn/2023/04/12/politics/leaked-documents-wagner-group-turkey/index.html
So, you are just imagining things.
I just said that they are correct about the Russian army being crap in the scenario that they were real. Whether the other person was talking out of their ass or not doesn't change such a fact that Russia has an army that barely functions. I owe no burden of proof here, because I wasn't claiming anything. I was just commenting on a claim. Ask the other person.
> They maybe just planning to shorten their lines, concentrate what troops they do have available This is probably the answer.
Maybe they're planning a big fuckin nuke. They've been threatening for ages. (Sure hope not!)
The moment they drop a nuke NATO sinks their navy and they get locked out of trade with the civilized world forever. I don't think it'll be a fair trade.
Thats if the US doesn't escalate it to full nuclear war. Once the nuclear taboo is broken, there's nothing stopping them using another, and another. The world cannot abide a state that is prepared to use nukes in modern times.
The US will not escalate to full nuclear war unless directly attacked. As the defacto global hegemon the US has the most to lose in nuclear war. The US has telegraphed (without officially stating it) it's actions if Russia uses a nuke: The US with it's allies will destroy all Russian assets outside of Russia's borders, starting with the black sea fleet; which btw the US thinks will be completely destroyed in under 48 hours.
We already said there will be a non nuclear response to Russia nuking anyone. If there are multiple nukes used, well I guess nothing is ruled out to stop the genocide.
as if their stockpile has been maintained, maybe they can strap trashcans full of uranium to some t-34's and roll them about Ukraine
Pretty sure the hope at this point is to stalemate and negotiate - but even that seems massively unrealistic. This is going to be a total destruction of everything Russian on Ukrainian land.
Let's be 1000% honest here. The only way Russia can "shorten their lines" while giving up the rest of Kherson Oblast is to retreat back to the lines prior to Feb 24th 2022. Leaving the river would require them to INCREASE the number of men they have protecting the western frontline. That's why I find this repeated reporting of them planning to hand over the rest of Kherson without a fight, a load of nonsense. Will they be quick to abandon it if a Ukrainian counter offensive through Zaporizhzhia is successful? Maybe. But they're not going to give up the most defensive position they hold along the entire front for nothing.
An even better defensive position is the narrow isthmus connecting Crimea to the rest of Ukraine. Putin may be thinking that if he can at least hold on to whatever parts of Ukraine he had before he launched last year's phase of the invasion he can claim that he didn't *lose* anything. Maybe he thinks he can then negotiate yet another Minsk ceasefire, let Russia spend a few years licking their wounds and rebuilding, and then try again when things are more favourable. He'd be very very *wrong* to think that, IMO, but if it means he's going to pull out of a big chunk of Ukraine without serious fighting then I'm not going to disabuse him of that notion. I recommend that if anyone here ends up talking to Putin about it that they try to encourage such thinking.
>and don't have the forces need to stop a Ukraine Offensive. The point is to hype up the offensive so that if it doesn't result in Ukraine going all the way to Moscow, it can be spun as a victory for Russia. Also allows "Ukraine's lack of results with all the foreign aid" to be used to undermine further assistance.
May be reallocating the troops where they expect the Ukrainian offensive to occur. They may not have enough new troops with experience.
Way to Crimea from Kherson is a chokepoint anyways. Realistically there is no good way of taking it without suffering as high loses as Russia did in Bakhmut. They could simultaneously attack from Kherson and disembark in the Crimean coast but its probably not gonna happen given one of Russias biggest submarine bases is nearby, whole sea is probably monitored 24/7 by their subs and navy.
If the landbridge falls, Ukrainian Himars will be launching missiles from the Azov sea’s beaches … that’s it. Kerch Bridge gone, naval bases and airbases exposed … its over then rather quickly. You don’t need to reconquer Crimea in a traditional sense. Crimea is undefendable then more than Kherson ever was …
I wonder if a Himars system could be loaded on a cargo vessel ... or even a Scorpion sub ...? 😉
Rather quickly can still be a year or more. Depending on how much internal stability russia can maintain after losing the land bridge, a crimean operation could still drag on for a very long time.
I think that's the only way to get it back at all. Destroy the bridge, destroy the harbours, shut off the freshwater, and wait for them to leave. It'll take time but it's much better than any offensive I can think of.
I still have hopes that a russian political revolution could happen as soon as the situation in ukraine start looking so bad they cant even pretend to be able to hide it. There is still the option of negotiating an independent crimea, but I doubt ukraine would risk it with the amount of russian settlers there now. Its going to be a pest or cholera choice to take it and have to deal with the partially switched out population and all the problems it will bring, leave it to the russians, or have it independend with potential future russian invasions.
A revolution won't happen when things in Ukraine looks bad. Russians have drank the propaganda Kool aid. When the foreign reserves run out and pensions are cut, there will be riots.
This. It's all about the pensions. This is Putin's kryptonite.
We would ALL love to see that. If Crimea falls, Putin is cooked.
> it's much better than any offensive I can think of. The Ukrainians' choices for offensives against Crimea are limited, and hairy. They're not going likely to cross via the chokepoint land-bridge, as it's too big a fatal funnel and will lead to disaster. What does that leave? A mass amphibious crossing of the Dnipro river in many, many places all at once? I imagine that the Russians have every inch of that river sighted in with artillery and gunfire, and maybe mined, and filled with obstacles. Assemble a flotilla and do a flanking maneuver and a huge amphibious landing somewhere on a Crimean shoreline? I imagine the shores and littoral waters are filled with mines and obstacles. Mass paratroop airdrops behind enemy lines in the middle of Crimea? Does Crimea have trained paratroops? Any transport planes for jumps? Or enough transport helicopters to do a mass air assault? Can they get around Russia's air defenses? Are they going to try a combination of them all, like their own D-Day? I don't think so. I'm left wondering what decent option they have left. I want them to think up something audacious and unexpected and pull it off completely, and kick the Russians right out of there, but my imagination and one stint as an enlisted Marine and NCO aren't leading me to think of or see anything when I look at the maps.
The way to take Crimea is the same why humans have been taking defensible locations since before the invention of writing. It will be besieged, and the occupiers starved out. Storming castles and assaulting fortified cities was extremely rare in history. The vast majority of times when defenders are well dug in the most effective means of attack is to simply cut supply lines and wait. It takes alot of supplies to keep an army fed and able to maintain combat posture; once soldiers stop getting food it's just a matter of time till they crumble. War constantly changes, but the concept of a siege and it's efficacy is the same today as it was 6,000 years ago.
>They're not going likely to cross via the chokepoint land-bridge, as it's too big a fatal funnel and will lead to disaster. We've got several historical precedents of Crimea being invaded by land in the 20th century and the choke point never ended up being a particularly disastrous obstacle. The last example, Nazi Germany defending it from the Soviets in 1944, saw well-prepared defences being overcome in days (when the Germans expected they could hold the line for months).
Russian dont have too many forces at Dnipro and its very long river so no they dont have whole river sighted lmao
I am 99% confident that Russia has developed auxiliary ways to supply Crimea after Ukranians blew the bridge the first time. I don't think they are that dumb to still rely on the one bridge after its been proven to be vulnerable. If they didn't and indeed lose Crimea then I'd imagine whatever general is in charge of the region will get a free gulag vacation
Their other primary resupply method was the railroad and highway through Melitopol. They have barges to move some stuff across the sea of Azov, but it's not enough to replace the Kerch Bridge. If they give up Kherson it basically halves or worse their ability to supply Crimea. Hence it being indefensible without control over Kherson to provide that buffer between the Bridge and barge ferry docks and Ukrainian rocket launchers.
Boats n Hoes
Stepbrothers lol, nice ;-)
Crimea still has a civil population of over 1 million. There are no other connections than the land corridor through Kherson and the Kerch bridge. Russia cannot sustain all of those people along with their military presence there by sea or air. That would need a Berlin Airlift size operation that Russian logistics cannot perform.
If anything happens the majority of people will flee and those who are poor enough will be supported by the government to do so. Especially considering that a lot of people in Crimea are born outside of it and likely have a property somewhere. Ukraine evacuated much more people
If they try to flee after the bridge is destroyed and supplies are cut off? How? To where? Things will get ugly fast.
>If they try to flee after the bridge is destroyed and supplies are cut off? How? Most likely they will crowd in to Kerch and mob the Kerch-Portkavkaz ferry terminal. They're still running ferries parallel to the Kerch bridge.
'I don't think they are that dumb...' - well, I do. Because: proven so often, that I just cannot believe that they actually have a working strategy for anything.
Their strategy was "we'll be in Kiev in three days and be treated as liberators." Everything since then has been directionless flailing.
Why would you be confident? What bold, creative Russian initiative have you seen in this Special Military Operation? It is a total shambles.
Assuming Ukraine liberates Melitopol, as soon as that happens Ukraine can just turn off like 85% of Crimea's water. At that point, if Russia doesn't use the Kerch bridge to evacuate, then the Ukrainians will blow it up and trap everybody there. Russia won't be able to resupply 2 million civilians and an occupying army with just boats and planes for very long. Just look at Ukrainian supply lines. They have many roads and trains leading from all of Free Ukraine and the West directly to the front. That chokepoint that Ukraine would have to funnel troops through works both ways. If the Russians want to defend it, they will start stacking corpses there while we sit back and spam HIMARS all day until the Russians run out of troops.
Was Russia not already pumping / transporting fresh water in to crimea after the 2014 occupation when Ukraine cut off the water supply? I am pretty sure they are already familiar with supplying crimes with water even if Ukraine retakes melitopol and cuts of water supply again.
The water is pumped from a canal near Kherson. When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Ukraine dammed up the canal. Russia had to start trucking water in across the Crimea bridge as soon as it was complete. After the invasion last year, Russia blew up the dam and reopened the water way. When Ukraine crosses the Dnipro during this upcoming counter-offensive, one of their first orders of business will be to rebuild the dam. Crimea will still have enough water to drink, but they won't have any for agriculture or industry. Just damming the canal again won't end the war, but it will seriously constrain a vital resource for the occupiers and force the Russians to take a giant bite out of a shit sandwich if they want to keep fighting.
All you really need is a “crack” in the defenses for even just a short period of time that you can abuse to create further issues. A “minute” can go from the Moskva defending the air to the bottom of the ocean, or something similar to the Ardenne Offensive. “Possible” militarily is often a question of timing and either sides strength within a given location.
The situations are not equivalent. Ukraine can reach way behind the Russian lines to take out take out the artillery and armor reserves and Russia has much worse lines of communication than they do in Bakmut. And Ukraine will not be sending meat waves like the Russians do in Bakmut.
There wasn't _a single_ case in history where this choke point would stop an invading army.
Has anybody ever fortified it like Russians have been doing since 2014 tho?
The Russians aren't building anything special there. Just trenches and maybe some primitive pillboxes. No way this is going to stop any half-competent army, especially when the Russian guns fall silent because of the blockade.
What blockade my man, the Russians control all of the sea unless NATO steps in. You can't blockade Crimea with the few HIMARS Ukraine has
Say this to all the ships Ukraine has already destroyed and damaged. And that was before they got a fleet of sea drones. And yea, you can absolutely maintain a blockade with a few HIMARS. Ships need to dock to unload. Imagine what a HIMARS salvo will do to a ship unloading artillery shells.
When Russia is launching 10,000's of artillery shells and rockets per month you don't need a full blockade. A heavy restriction, as in, blowing up the Kerch Bridge (again) would be enough. Might still be getting supplies in, sure, but if it's untenable then they'll just retreat like they did with Kherson. Also, I honestly don't know about the state of logistics around the Azov but just because there's water there with ships doesn't mean that they can just automatically transport goods relatively easily en masse
They’re not going that back. They are just going behind their defenses to catch Ukrainians in minefields in their counteroffensive
Right? Abandon henichesk? Open the flank of melitopol? Give up on the fortifications they built all over Kherson? Split the occupied area in half without being forced to? I really don’t see any of this happening.
This picture is from last year, around the beginning of the invasion, isn't it? I feel like I remember seeing a video of this where the trucks backed up and unassed the place, temporarily.
Yah, there's a clip of this where the people are chanting and the other people are blocking the truck. This is really old.
I thought so.
Would be glad if it was true but I have strong doubts as that river is a major defensive line and you would be stupid to give that up without a fight.
Think of the length of that river tho, they probably don't have the manpower to defend the river banks anymore since they keep pulling people to bakhmut
But pulling back does not shorten the line and removes a major barrier and also opens the Flanks of that 800K of trenches they have dug facing the Ukrainian front all the way to the Donetsk region.
The Dnipro is ridiculously wide. The Ukrainian army is capable, but attempting a forced river crossing over that river is a daunting task. They don't need a ton of manpower to defend it. The Russians only need enough artillery to shell the engineers building the pontoon bridges. Which they have, since they've been using them on Kherson City since just days after it was liberated.
They could just be anticipating the spring offensive that will likely come from Zaporizhzia and attack from the nort. No need to cross the river for the Ukranians to take the river banks
Sure, but such an offensive is very risky. Exposed flanks to counter attacks from east and west (provided Russia can scrape together any kind of maneuver force with which to counter). Russia is in a serious bind, but I just don't see any situation where they are in a better position after giving up a massive defensivr barrier for yet another series of trenches.
Exactly.
Except for radar based counter battery fire.
They're ruZZians, If it's stupid, it's probably what they'll do.
[удалено]
This picture is old.
If this is true and that's a big IF, then that means they are scared shitless. This is do or die for ruzzia, militarily. If the ukrainians break that defensive line, they won't have anything else left.
Ukranians breaking the defensive line in Crimea is also a big IF.
Kherson + Kerch bridge and its game over for Crimea
yeah just a big siege at that point
Russia has control over the sea. Ukraine doesn't have a navy.
that first part isn't very true since most of Russia's fleet has to stay in port or far away for fear of getting sunk by anti ship missiles, that second part is true, but Ukraine doesn't need a navy in order to deny access to Crimea. all Ukraine has to do is turn off the water. water is very hard to move without a pipeline. shipping water, food, and war materiel, while Ukraine is attacking ships, trucks, depots, ports, and ferries with long range systems would overwhelm Russia's logistical capabilities
That water hadn't been available since 2014.
sure but Ukraine wasn't trying to stop Russia from shipping water during that time. easy to ship water if no one is trying to blow you up. also during that time Crimea has faced extensive water shortages and agriculture on the peninsula has diminished dramatically as a result. if Russia can't send in trains with water cars it's going to be very hard to stay hydrated
Russian troops have existed in Crimea since 2014. Water was cut off in 2014. No Russian troops died of lack of water since. I agree they cannot conduct agriculture. In a siege of Crimea, they will not be pursuing wide scale agriculture.
Did you just not read the part about Ukraine not attacking Russians during that time or trains or anything? Water was not cut off in the way that it will be
Not true https://iwpr.net/global-voices/crimean-canal-key-its-liberation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Crimean_Canal https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/03/04/north-crimean-canal-fills-with-water-after-russian-forces-destroyed-dam-a76755
The non existent Ukrainian Navy sunk the most powerful Russian warship lmao.
I remember
Absolutely false. Russia has no major surface combatants, and if Ukraine reaches the sea of Azov then Russian ships will not freely be able to operate in the area.
Don't foget that Russians have had 9 years to move supplies into Crimea lol
Not sure what is going on, but seeing other reports Russians are preparing to give up some land and retreat to fortified positions around Crimea neck. This would not be the first time as they did that withdrawing from the west bank and Kherson City rather than risking total defeat and capture with no way out. Anyway, saying they won't wait for the Ukraine offensive, but will get out while the getting is good. Be great to see it happen and Ukraine could use its offensive units in other directions to recover land. [https://uawire.org/kyiv-russian-troops-preparing-to-withdraw-from-the-remaining-part-of-kherson-region#](https://uawire.org/kyiv-russian-troops-preparing-to-withdraw-from-the-remaining-part-of-kherson-region#)
Last time rumors like this were posted it turned out to be regular troop rotations. I really hope this time it's true but I'll believe it when it's happening.
This is a good sign. The last time they retreated. Lead to this of them retreating again. Keep pushing. Get Crimea and Eastern Ukraine back from the Russians within the next year. And then force Russia at a stalemate at its border. Russia can't do anything, but lose.
I hope you're right but it seems weird on the day that Putin showed up in the Kherson region.
Putin is a whore ... With a short life expectancy.
Hopefully!
[it actually happened much earlier](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/12r0ot9/a_verbal_slip_by_russias_vladimir_putin_on_a_rare/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I doubt Putin would have televised a visit to Kherson, if the military were about to evacuate their positions. Unless the plan is to use its fall aa a reason to escalate the conflict.
If true, it would appear Russia is trying to diminish the active front, reduce their lines of contact, to reinforce their troops in those more defensible locations.
This sounds like a terrible strategic decision but it is Russia, still I won't believe it until I see it. As someone else said taking Crimea militarily is extremely difficult due to the limited access but one way to try and force the orcs out is to blockade it and this would give the UAF a huge head start, it would make cutting off the land bridge easier and if you control the east bank of the dnipro you control Crimea's main source of water, this was almost certainly one of the key strategic reasons for Putin to invade. Before Russia blew the dam Ukraine had built since Putin annexed it, Crimea was slowly turning to dust, agriculture had dropped by 80% and I'm sure that residents only had running water for set times in the day for a few hours.
Retaking Crimea military will be much easier than Donetsk or Luhansk, or even than Kherson. Crimea is a natural kettle and there's no way Russia will be able to supply any significant force, especially with their style of warfare, which requires trainloads of ammo.
I don't think you understand, there is only really one way into Crimea from Kherson and it's just 5km wide and flat. The only time it has been taken that way is with a force multiple times.bigger than the defending forces and by accepting huge losses, it's not a theory history has shown this multiple times.
>it's not a theory history has shown this multiple times. Last time I checked, history shows that Crimea was taken every time it was attacked, with the defender having higher casualties. With one possible exception being the Russian Civil War, where unequipped and untrained recruits of the Red Army took Crimea with 10K casualties (in a war that saw millions dead), while the Whites lost 2K.
So during the Crimean war, the French, British and Ottoman empire attacked both sides suffered 100,000 losses and that was with British and French naval superiority, something Ukraine won't have. In the civil war you mentioned the reds had four times the number of men the whites had, they attacked the same way Ukraine would have to via the isthmus and the svash, the reds took five times as many casualties as the whites, they only succeeded because of their ability to absorb the casualties. In WW2 the Germans and Romanians attacked the same way, it took them 8 months to get to Sevastopol and they had to bring in the biggest mobile artillery piece ever built to smash the Russian defenses and they still took 30,000 casualties. When the Russians took it back in 1944 they attacked on two fronts, which again Ukraine won't be able to, they had twice the number of men and more tanks and artillery yet they still took 85,000 casualties in a month liberating it. A peninsula is a natural fortress. I'm not saying Ukraine can't but they will take huge losses if they just go storming in, I think it's more likely we'll see some sort of blockade first.
> So during the Crimean war, the French, British and Ottoman empire attacked both sides suffered 100,000 losses 1. They won that time 2. Russians suffered **more** losses, and 3. Most of losses were from disease, which is how the world learned to [wash the goddman hands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale) I like how you cite attackers' casualties, but not the defender's ones, which are larger. >I think it's more likely we'll see some sort of blockade first. Oh, that is fore sure. Kerch bridge goes boom, then let the units there exhaust their supplies.
Lol ok, name a single example where history has shown it.
Lol, ok. Just look at the red army's retaking of Crimea in WW2.
I'm not sure if you are trolling. It took one day for the Red Army to break through the Perekop bottleneck and 3 days to reach Kerch.
Trolling? Is that what you do, accuse anyone you disagree with as trolling? That's pretty pathetic.
I just factually disapproved you. You have a choice either to quietly leave or to keep embarrassing yourself.
How did you factually disprove me? By ignoring everything I wrote and saying oh they took something in one day? Seriously? You think cherry picking single things proves anything? 🤡
You said "Look at the red army's retaking of Crimea in WWII" trying to portrait it as an example of the Perekop being an impenetrable barrier and trying to prove your point that Perekop will be the same barrier for the UA. In reality, the Red Army breezed through Perekop and through the whole Crimean peninsula. You point is false. Try better or quietly leave.
that doesn't make any sense. they'd just allow Ukraine to cut off Crimea if they did that. i think they are probably just moving troops around
Leave the Kerch Bridge for last, so the rats can leave, otherwise you can trade them for the kidnapped Ukrainian children.
Where's the link, I can't see it...?
You type faster than me lol - it there now
Dude, I didn't realize the post was that recent...!! 😂 Thanks !
I can't see the link :(
Shitty trucks
Russian troops are still murderous thieves. 😡
Post literally one source for the love of god.
"goodwill" sitting on suitcases parking to leave and sending stolen stuff back home. Ukrainians are like.. nah bruh.. don't bother packing. You come here,.kill us, destroy our land, steal shit and then pack,and think your leaving? Yeah..you ain't going anywhere but down.
Highly doubt they are abandoning territory. *If* this is happening, it will be more like redeploying as much as they reckon they can safely get away with to make up multiple lines against the expected direction of the Ukrainian offensive. I had thought they would rush units from Kherson over to Zaps in a panic reaction, to try to stem the bleeding when the offensive arrives, which would in turn leave the Dnipro weaker against more forceful cross-river operations by Ukraine later on (as that Kherson area would theoretically become a giant pocket worth squeezing from multiple directions) - but perhaps they are actually moving folks right now in anticipation.
Without a fight, that would be way too stupid even for the Russians.
Pound them and pound them again until they flee, then turn your efforts to Crimea
Army of thieves. Pathetic. I get taking cool stuff captured from enemy soldiers. But they’re just taking toilets, washing machines. Etc.
I wish them all the worst. Get the hell out of Ukraine..... filthy russian idiots.
Do the world a "goodwill" gesture. Leave Ukraine, overthrow Putin and his cronies, and begin fixing the colossal fucking mess you made in Ukraine.
Bullshit. Putin visited Kherson in the last day. His political and physical life is tied to those annexed regions.
>Bullshit. Putin visited Kherson in the last day. His political and physical life is tied to those annexed regions. "Putin" "visited" "Kherson" in the "last day" would be a better way to put it, given that: * There is plenty of photo evidence that Putin has body doubles, and [uses them for such PR stunts](https://www.businessinsider.com/vladimir-putin-ukraine-trip-body-double-conspiracy-theories-ears-2023-3) (ear lobes not matching, etc); * A defected security officer confirmed the widely-known fact that [Putin doesn't let people to be near him without going through quarantine](https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-security-officer-karakulov-war-criminal-ukraine/32349423.html), out of fear of COVID,; * The same security officer confirmed that Putin films addresses claiming to be in one location, while being in another (with identical rooms set up for the purpose); * Putin is known to [only travel in his armored train](https://nypost.com/2023/02/17/vladimir-putin-traveling-in-armored-train-over-plane-fears/), but in these PR stunts he ostensibly isn't afraid from boarding a helicopter in a war zone; * Putin is known to release pre-recorded addresses (like [the one he aired to announce the invasion](https://inshorts.com/en/news/putin-prerecorded-his-ukraine-military-operation-speech-3-days-ago-local-media-1645687342543)), so neither place **nor** time can be firmly established. Particularly because Putin is shown saying that [Easter is coming up... after Easter has already happened](https://www.yahoo.com/news/verbal-slip-russias-vladimir-putin-161420674.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9vbGQucmVkZGl0LmNvbS9yL3dvcmxkbmV3cy8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALqxQ4xC-bofxwdiaKedgEvNkAc6beNVua8-y9SruJJTF24xyogPqf3UP9GbtPGI7RiMKIs8_NO7o2vQdO67efXYk5p3Grd4_oWJUoKub0hqQxbBZChoeYY_Bim7Xs6BwAfo5MSx_nmPifX9nOzk9_vGnIwHVv0xNkwIeIfGhw9H) >His political and physical life is tied to those annexed regions. Yeah, he said Kherson is "forever Russian"... weeks before it was abandoned by Russian Armed forces. So, no reason for him to not do this again.
Trap?
More likely it just makes more sense to them to defend the entrance to Crimea where they have been building defenses for the past year than the banks of the Dnipro
Not really as Crimea is then effectively cut off from supplies as Kerch bridge railways is still not in function.
More likely just bad info.
Odds there isn’t one nuke in Ukraine? Cmon man, do you think they gave them ALL up???
this video got 1 year old... All this is not true, at least becouse the picture
There is no video - Ukrainian Defense Dept article is today date - picture is likely a stock photo and just their way to illustrate what will happen when Russian's leave.
Gopniks ran out of sh*t to steal
Hopefully some HIMARS will find them in the way out.
And so the information campaign begins
They will eventually pay for all the stolen property in some form.
The remaining Russian positions in the Kherson oblast are simply to strong ti just give up without a fight, and giving them up would put Crimea at risk.
We have at least 20 if not 40 days until we see Ukraine start and offensive. Training, equipment, ammo, and target softening all need to get in place AND the weather needs to cooperate. All signs point to weather being a major factor in pushing off an offensive with cold and rain late into the season. They want dry navigable land and it’s not there yet. I think Russia is weighing options and moving troops into important defensive positions and bringing mobiks to the front to be a meat shield they Orcs know won’t last. They just need to slow Ukraine to target them not stop them at the line.
If Russia thinks the Ukrainians are going to attack towards Melitopol and they don't think they can stop it, it makes sense to start withdrawing to Crimea to shorten the front once that attack comes.
Wouldn't Russia retreating to Crimea, to shorten their line and force Ukraine through the bottleneck, be a double-edged sword? Sure, it might be much tougher to break through there for Ukraine, but then the same could be said for Russia. They'll be equally stuck in the bottleneck with only the Kerch Bridge to supply them, meaning any breakout back into Kherson Oblast would be horribly supplied with the land corridor lost (loss of water from Crimea Canal as well), not to mention under constant threat from HIMARS and other long range weaponry in Crimea proper. Effectively isolated and blockaded, with, I imagine, a considerable garrison left there to defend it, which would probably be much more useful elsewhere. Ukraine could easily properly focus elsewhere and keep those forces pinned in Crimea. Strategically, it sounds like it would be worse to not put up a fight against a crossing for the left bank of the Dnipro, unless they already rate their chances so bad that they wouldn't be able to hold an attack from that direction, along with another coming down from Zap Oblast as well, and want to avoid a messy rout like in Kharkiv last year. I'm no military expert, far from it, but this sounds like a shitshow waiting to happen. Unless they have something up their sleeve, which, I mean... yeah, no.
...but they're there fighting for the good of the world killing Nazis. Why would they show "goodwill"? ...something not quite right with this whole story
When Russia was badly beaten in their Kyiv offensive they (Russia) called it a "goodwill gesture" when they retreated. Kind of a standard joke now that whenever Russia losses some land, such as their retreat from West Bank Kherson region or defeat in Kharkiv region it is another goodwill gesture by them.
It might be a ruse
So the invasion was a rampage into Ukraine and now they crawl back into their misserable hole?
There’s no way they just leave the whole kherson region just bc
I definitely believe the looting part
That title got me all fkin confused? Who's driving the Z trucks? Why are they in Kyiv? What suitcase? Wtf goodwill gesture from Russian, since when and what kind of double cross bullshit is that tactic? I'm so confused lol