Russia abandons Kherson city and digs in farther east for a pivotal winter battle
Russia’s latest retreat is the first major decision of Ukraine forces commander Sergey Surovikin, who is choosing his ground for his first major battle
Russia announced it was abandoning the western reaches of Kherson region in southern Ukraine as indefensible in the 37th week of the war, potentially handing Ukraine another major victory after humiliating retreats from Kiyv and Chernihiv and a rout in Kharkiv region in the north.
In a staged propaganda video released by the Russian defence ministry, the overall commander of forces in Ukraine, Sergey Surovikin, told defence minister Sergey Shoigu, “After a comprehensive assessment of the current situation, we suggest taking defence along the left shore [east bank] of the Dnipro river. Understand, this is not an easy decision, but at the same time, we will preserve the lives of our servicemen, and in general the combat-readiness of the group of forces.”
Shoigu replies, “Sergey Vladimirovich, I agree with your conclusions and suggestions. For us, the lives of Russian servicemen are always a priority.”
It was Surovikin’s first major decision since taking over command a month earlier. The battle for Kherson region may be pivotal to the war, and he said he didn’t want to fight it “in a limited area”.
The video appeared scripted to counter widespread reports that thousands of newly mobilised troops were being sent to battle untrained an ill-equipped. In a similar propaganda video the Kremlin released on October 28, Shoigu told Russian president Vladimir Putin, “We pay special and separate attention to [training], because it is necessary to send the prepared, trained, equipped.”
“Absolutely, this is how it should be done,” replied Putin.
Ukraine has already won back half the territory Russia occupied this year. Despite claims that it has mobilised 300,000 men in September and October and fielded 41,000 of them, Russia has been unable to claw back territory or make new conquests, putting it in a defensive posture.
Ukraine’s miiltary leadership has made clear in interviews that it considers winning back Kherson and the Crimea as key to winning the war. It launched an offensive on occupied Kherson on August 29 taking back 1,170 sq km, and has been building up forces there.
"[Ukraine’s Armed Forces] are preparing for the next stage of the attack on the Kherson region,” Kirill Stremousov Russia’s deputy occupation governor, warned on November 5. “Brigade artillery groups, mortar batteries, tactical planes and army aviation helicopters are conducting massive fire in preparation for the assault," he said.
The following day, occupation authorities said Kherson city had lost power after Ukrainian “terrorists” bombed concrete pylons carrying high-voltage lines.
Russian forces have been withdrawing men and equipment from the west bank of the Dnipro for weeks. They also said they had evacuated 60,000 teachers, doctors and other professionals – an evacuation Russian president Vladimir Putin endorsed, saying “the civilian population should not suffer.”
Nonetheless, Ukraine braced for a possible trap. “This could be a manifestation of a particular provocation in order to create the impression that the settlements are abandoned, that it is safe to enter them, while they are preparing for street battles,” said Natalya Humenyuk, spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern forces.
Staying in business
Russia’s retreat on the battlefield is about to be compounded by financial concerns.
Skyrocketing coal, oil and gas prices meant that Russia made $120bn more from hydrocarbon exports this year than it did in 2021, said a new report from the Bruegel think-tank, giving it a current account surplus of $198bn from January to September and helping it to finance a war whose cost to Russia has previously been estimated at $223mn-$500mn a day.
Bruegel believes Russia’s current account surplus will be $240bn for the year, but that this windfall is about to end. Europe stopped importing Russian coal in August. In December it will stop importing Russian crude, and refined petroleum products from Russia will stop in February.
“European income will be zero for Russia next year, but what its income will be from alternative clients is unpredictable because we don’t know the quantities that will be exported and their prices,” Maria Demertzis, deputy director of the Bruegel Institute told Al Jazeera.
Those alternative clients, says Demertzis, are mainly Russia and China. “Both currently purhcase at a very high discount compared to Europe, so the income to Russia will be much reduced,” she said.
There are also added costs from weapons purchases. During the first seven months of the war, Russia relied on its massive stockpiles of shells and rockets. But reports have surfaced in the last two months that it has been buying ordnance, as Ukraine has targeted its ammunition warehouses with devastating effectiveness.
Last month, Belarus railway workers tallied that their country had supplied 65,000 tonnes of ammunition to Russia in 1,940 rail cars.
Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, said Russia had ordered 1,700 drones of different types from Iran. This month it signed a new contract for 1,000 Iranian weapons of different kinds, including 200 drones that were shipped across the Caspian Sea to Astrakhan, intelligence said.
A US intelligence report in September revealed Putin was buying millions of artillery shells from North Korea.
Rooting for Republicans
The US mid-term elections have also not created the kind of political turmoil many Russians hoped might stanch the flow of money to Ukraine’s war effort.
Both US House and Senate majorities hung in the balance two days after the November 8 vote, belying expectations of a Republican takeover of Congress.
A Democratic-controlled Congress has approved a total of $65.9bn in military and financial aid to Ukraine (see sidebar below), but Russia may have sensed an opportunity on September 30, when the most recent aid package passed the US House of Representatives along party lines for the first time, with only 10 Republicans supporting Democrats.
“It seems that there is a minority wing of the Republican Party that are more sceptical about aid to Ukraine,” Aristotle Tziampiris, chair of the Department of International and European Studies of the University of Piraeus told Al Jazeera.
“Historcically there is a strain that is averse to foreign entanglements. It could be coming from one party or the other… Some intellectuals think it’s a mistake for the US to alienate both China and Russia at the same time,” said Tziampiris.
Russian commentators had made no secret of their hopes of blunting president Joe Biden’s hawkish Ukraine policy by strenghtening the opposition.
“Even the most powerful nations who enter into conflict… support the unrest, the divisions to weaken the adversary,” said Political commentator Vladimir Kornilov on Russia-1 state TV show 60 Minut. “The Republicans will have to annihilate Biden. As Biden’s antagonists, they are an easy choice. They’ll block the passage of defence budgets. This will benefit us.”
Russia’s signalling that it was willing to negotiate an end to the war in the past several weeks may have been aimed at influencing US voters, say observers.
Russia’s ambassador to the US played on this doveish theme days before the midterms. “Our so-called partners continue the erroneous policy, thinking that the problem can be solved on the battlefield,” said Anatoly Antonov.
This rhetoric is misleading, says Dr. Emmanuel Karagiannis, reader in international security at King's College London told Al Jazeera.
“Despite the pro-negotiation discourse, the Kremlin has not changed its strategy in Ukraine. On the contrary, the Russian military has targeted the country’s energy infrastructure to increase the suffering of civilians. Yet, Moscow is aware that certain elements within both parties in the Congress are increasingly reluctant to support Kiev without any political conditions,” Karagiannis said.
The nuclear option
The Russian leadership has for months cultivated the notion that it might resort to nuclear weapons to achieve what it cannot with conventional forces, but last week it received discouragement from its most important ally, China.
“The international community should… jointly oppose the use or threats to use nuclear weapons, advocate that nuclear weapons must not be used and nuclear wars must not be fought, in order to prevent a nuclear crisis in Eurasia,” Chinese president Xi Jinping said.
Significantly, his remarks came on the same day the world’s seven largest
Economies condemned “Russia’s irresponsible nuclear rhetoric” as “unacceptable”.
Experts largely agree that use of a nuclear device could quickly escalate, because Ukraine borders on NATO countries.
“The West would face an existential dilemma,” said Karagiannis. “If the Russian attack [went] unpunished, Ukraine would be forced to surrender and Western deterrence strategy would be challenged enormously.”
Such a precedent would discomfit China, noted Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews.
“If states around the world see that nuclear weapons can now be used to compel their capitulation to conquest, what would stop Taiwan and Japan, for instance, from developing their own nuclear deterrent,” he wrote in a column on Substack. “That would be probably the worst possible development from a Chinese perspective.”
US aid to Ukraine in 2022
March 8: US Congress approved $13.6bn in spending for Ukraine, divided equally between aid for refugees and military aid.
April 28: The US Congress revived Lend-Lease facilities to speed up weapons shipments to Ukraine.
May 19: US Congress approved a $40bn aid package for Ukraine, about half of which was intended for military aid.
September 30: Congress approved a stopgap spending bill to keep the government funded to the end of the year and approve $12.3bn in new spending for Ukraine.