Russian forces prepare to defend dwindling territory in Ukraine’s south
Ukraine’s recaptured hundreds of square kilometres of land from retreating Russian forces in the 38th week of the war, prompting questions about where its next advance will be.
Two weeks of anti-nuclear messaging from the West and China seemed to go up in smoke when a Russian-made missile hit a Polish village near the border with Ukraine on November 16, briefly raising the spectre of NATO involvement and a broader conflagration.
"The story of the Ukrainian 'missile attack' on a Polish farm proves only one thing: the West, by its hybrid war with Russia, increases the likelihood of a world war starting," tweeted former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of Russia’s powerful Security Council.
It was not immediately clear whether Russian forces had fired the missile. Ukraine also uses Soviet-era weapons.
“We do not have any conclusive evidence at the moment as to who launched this missile … it was most likely a Russian-made missile, but this is all still under investigation at the moment,” Polish President Andrzej Duda told reporters.
China and the United States jointly condemned the threat of nuclear force on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Indonesia.
“[US] President [Joe] Biden and Chinese President Xi [Jinping] reiterated their agreement that a nuclear war should never be fought and can never be won, and underscored their opposition to the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine,” said a White House readout.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was strident in his condemnation of Russian nuclear threats in a virtual address to that summit. “Russia has turned our Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant into a radioactive bomb that can explode at any moment,” he said of Europe’s biggest nuclear plant, currently under Russian occupation.
Nuclear no, conventional yes
While the West condemned the threat of nuclear war, it continued to help Ukraine prosecute the conventional one.
The Netherlands said it would contribute €100 million to a newly created International Fund for Ukraine (IFU) to finance military material for Ukraine.
The European Union launched the EU Military Assistance Mission to Ukraine (EUMAM), whose initial purpose is to train 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers. European High Commissioner Josep Borrell said the European Union collectively and the member states individually had in sum spent 8bn euros on military aid to Ukraine, about 45% of the amont spent by the US.
Both these initiatives suggest Europe is preparing for months of war. Both are separate from the Ramstein format meetings begun in April at the US airbase in Ramstein, Germany, where 40 countries have convened several times to make weapons pledges to Ukraine.
They are also separate from the August Copenhagen conference, where countries made weapons pledges worth €1.55bn.
Meanwhile the The US Pentagon announced a $521mn order to Lockheed Martin for more Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System ammunition for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System it has supplied to Ukraine.
Russia still losing ground
The bolstering of Ukraine’s arsenal came as Russia completed its latest retreat from territory it captured in February and March, when it attempted a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
On November 9, Sergey Surovikin, the commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, said he was pulling out of the west bank of the Dnipro river in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine. His plan was to focus Russian strength on other fronts, he said.
On the same day as Surovikin’s announcement, Ukraine said it had recaptured 12 settlements. By the following day, Ukrainian forces said they had advanced 7km into that territory, and recaptured 157 sq km.
An August 29 Ukrainian counter-offensive had already captured 1,381 sq.km. of Kherson from Russian forces, and Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, was quick to claim the retreat as another victory for Ukraine.
"Significant efforts of our military are behind the so-called ‘goodwill gesture’ of the enemy. Just as the enemy retired from Kyiv and Kharkiv region, abandoned Zmiinyi (Snake) Island, the likely pullout from Kherson is the outcome of our active operations,” he said.
For weeks, Ukraine has been pounding Russian command bunkers and ammunition warehouses in the region with high-precision weapons.
By November 11, Ukraine’s general staff said their forces had reached the Dnipro river in several places in western Kherson, and exercised effective firepower over the rest of the territory west of the river.
By then, Russia claimed to have completed its retreat in an orderly fashion.
“All the personnel, armament and hardware have been redeployed to the left bank. A total of over 30,000 Russian servicemen, about 5,000 units of armament and hardware, as well as material means have been withdrawn,” said the Russian defence ministry spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov, adding, “All the Russian servicemen have redeployed to the left bank of Dnipro.”
Ukraine’s fatality estimates for Russian forces suggested otherwise, hovering above 700 a day, an unusually high number. Ukraine’s general staff said retreating Russian forces had suffered an especially high-casualty incident on November 12.
“In the area of the settlement of Dnipryany, a high-precision strike was carried out on a building where up to 500 occupants were located. According to its results, two trucks of dead invaders were taken to Tavriysk and 56 seriously injured people were taken to the nearest hospital, of which 16 more died soon after,” said a bulletin.
“Russian soldiers!” proclaimed a Ukrainian announcement. “Your commanders urge you to dress in civilian clothes and try to escape from Kherson on your own. Obviously you can’t do this… Retreat paths of Russian occupants are under the fire control of the Ukrainian army… You have only one chance to avoid death – to surrender immediately.”
To slow the Ukrainian advance, Russia had blown two spans of the Antonovsky bridge and blown up the road running atop the Kakhovka dam – putting the two remaining routes across the Dnipro in Kherson out of action.
What happens next?
“Vadym Skibitsky, Ukraine’s deputy military intelligence chief, estimated the Russian forces evacuating Kherson at 20,000, well below the Russian figure. At the same time, Vladimir Rogov, leader of the We Are Together With Russia movement, said Ukraine had an estimated 40,000 troops in the Kherson region.
If both numbers are true, Ukraine would have a significant numerical advantage before 300,000 Russian troops mobilised in September joined the front.
Ukraine will first have to drive east, through the rest of Kherson province. It could then drive south into Crimea, or continue east, into Zaporizhia.
In Rogov’s view, Ukrainian forces will strike Zaporizhia next. Seizing it would isolate Russian forces in east Ukraine from those in Crimea, preventing Russian troop movements from one front to another.
“Zaporozhye is a priority - because Zelensky's dream is to cut the front, [divide] our grouping and to go to Berdyansk as he has already said. So, I think they will try to move in this direction," Rogov said.
Ukraine’s general staff reported an “increase in occupation troops in the Melitopol area,” the largest metropolitan area in Zaporizhia. “Fortifications and defensive buildings are being built around the perimeter of the city… columns are arriving at the city from the side of Tokmak.”
But Ukraine’s commander-in-chief has said he intends to recapture the Crimea in 2023. Zelenskyy seemed to hint at that goal on November 14, after he presided of the raising of the Ukrainian flag in Kherson city.
Zelenskyy said the liberation of Kherson city “can be compared with D-Day — the Normandy landings. It was not yet the finale in the fight against evil, but it already determined the entire subsequent course of events. This is exactly what we are feeling now. Now that Kherson is free,” Zelensky said.