Russia Surrenders Kherson
In Grading My Predictions I stated the following
While Ukraine continues to make gains in its offensive, they have not yet pushed Russian forces to the east bank of the Dnieper river. We will see if my prediction bears fruit.
My prediction finally bore fruit as Russia surrendered Kherson back to Ukraine and withdrew their forces across the Dnipier River. I am surprised Russia took this long to surrender, Russia held this terrible position in Kherson for over three months. Russia overextended their position, leading them to defend territory with no border to protect them and a river boxing them in from behind.
As Russia withdraws from Kherson, they continue their slow mudslide to capture Bakhmut. If you want to see the mudslide in action then follow the Bakhmut maps from MilitaryLand. The Bakhmut mudslide combined with the Kherson withdrawal may create space for a Ukrainian offensive in Zaporizhzhia.
What would a Ukrainian offensive in Zaporizhzhia look like? Just south of the Russian line of control lies Vasylivka, an important hub controlling access to southeastern Ukraine. By capturing Vasylivka Ukraine can threaten Melitopol, a road and rail hub connecting Crimea to Russia’s newly annexed territory in eastern Ukraine. Capturing Melitopol ruptures the land bridge connecting Crimea to the rest of Russia’s territory.
Misreading Russian Airpower, Again
Three weeks into the war, I shared a quote from David Roza of Task & Purpose
For this reason, the VKS has a purely supportive role, through and through: it is meant to — and equipped to — establish air superiority only over the frontlines, and then support ground or naval forces,” Cooper explained.
This concept continues to vex me. My U.S. Air Force mindset prioritizes air superiority over the entire battlefield, not just the frontlines. This led to me to poorly predict Russia’s strategy for using the drones they bought from Iran.
Two months ago I discussed the first sightings of Iran’s Shahad-136 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) on the Ukrainian battlefield. I then discussed how these drones could execute a mission called suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD), but Russia proceeded on a different route. Instead of attempting SEAD Russia tried to knock out Ukraine’s ability to generate electricity, with some success.
These attacks use the principle of starvation, an old tactic in warfare. Humans cannot fight without food to power themselves. Similarly, Ukrainians cannot survive the winter without the ability to power their homes with electricity. We will see if Russia successfully prosecutes this strategy, but their Iranian weaponry would be best used knocking out Ukraine’s air defense capabilities.
Low Russian Manpower or Satellites?
I believed Russia’s failure to amass the necessary troop levels to capture Kiev doomed the mission, but that might not be correct. Co-founder of the Silverado Policy Accelerator, Dimitri Alperovitch, made me reconsider my opinion.
Starlink has been absolutely essential because the Russians have targeted the Ukrainian communications infrastructure, Without that they’d be really operating in the blind in many cases.
While I would have not invaded Ukraine with less than 200K troops, Russia’s plan had a higher chance of success than I originally thought. Absent Statlink Ukrainians would, at best, possess severely degraded communications. A small Russian force could have completed their mad dash to the capital, Kiev, if Ukrainians were unable to use modern communication devices.
But our analysis is not complete, as CNN reports
It’s not only used for voice and electronic communication but to help fly drones and send back video to correct artillery fire.
Not only has Starlink allowed Ukraine to defeat Russia’s attempt to capture Kiev, Starlink also enabled Ukraine’s offensive in Kharkiv and Kherson. As the title of this New York Times article note, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine evolved into an artillery war.
Ukraine needs to utilize drones to find Russian positions to bombard with artillery. The drones then send that targeting information to Ukrainian artillery positions. Once the Ukrainian artilleryman receive the targeting information they then strike the Russian positions. Ukrainians would be unable to engage in this process without Starlink.