UPDATE: Saturday, Nov 12, 2022 · 7:20:50 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
On Saturday, there are reports on Russian Telegram that bases are being relocated away from the Kherson area, moving at least 70km back from the river to hopefully get beyond the range of HIMARS. This includes the base that has served as the repair and refueling station for helicopters used across the south. Military bloggers are pinpointing what appear to be new bases under construction — coming soon to a map near you.
UPDATE: Saturday, Nov 12, 2022 · 5:07:56 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Multiple reports suggesting that Russia destroyed a lot of equipment that couldn’t be moved across the river. Witnesses say that many of the explosions that were recorded in Kherson were not Ukrainian forces attacking Russian held sites in the city, but Russians systematically blowing up tanks, transports, artillery, etc.
Picking up where we left off on Friday ...
Waking up this morning with all of Kherson west of the Dnipro liberated by Ukraine. There are still more videos of celebrations, still more videos of towns being liberated, still more videos of Russian equipment wrecked alongside the road, still more videos of captured equipment, still more videos of Russian prisoners, and still more videos of elderly Ukrainian women greeting soldiers with belts of heavy machine gun ammo. Okay, that last one may be unique.
Sure, some people bring them flowers, but does that really top this?
As expected, not everything is completely peaceful on Saturday morning. Just hours after the liberations of Kherson, artillery has begun firing across the river to the north. However, it may not be firing quite in the direction that many expected.
As of Friday, Russia has moved the “capital” of Russian-occupied Kherson from the city of Kherson to Henichesk. This is a town of less than 20,000 people before the war began. That makes it considerably smaller than such familiar small cities as Izyum or Kupyansk. Far smaller than any actual regional capital in Ukraine. There are certainly other larger cities within Kherson oblast. For example, both Kakhovka and Nova Kakovka are much larger.
What’s so special about Henichesk? What’s special is that it is tucked all the over in the southeastern corner of the oblast — putting it outside of both artillery and HIMARS range.
Henichesk is as far away as Russia can run, and still pretend to be in control of Kherson oblast; from a town 14x smaller than the one they occupied at the beginning of the week. And, of course, there are good reasons to move Russian operations as far from any Ukrainian force as possible. Because it’s not just artillery targeting Russian positions across the river.
For Nova Kakhovka, this is nothing new. Ukrainian forces have been striking ammunition depots, supply depots, and aggregations of military vehicles in the area since HIMARS became a factor in the war, well before Ukraine began the western counteroffensive that reached its climax in Kherson this week. The idea that Russia could safely mass artillery on the east bank and pound the west once removed from Kherson was always questionable, because this is the likely fate of any sort of fixed artillery position anywhere in that region. And if Russia thought they had some kind of “deal” that meant they could sit across the river and not be bothered by Ukrainian forces … nope.
Where did the Ukrainian grandmother get her handy stock of 12.7mm NSV ammo? It’s likely that Russia was using her home or a nearby building for a small stockpile like this one.
An inability to supply forces across the river after Ukraine targeted bridge surfaces was a primary reason behind Russia’s withdrawal from the area west of the Dnipro. However, that doesn’t mean there was no ammo left. A number of caches like this one have been found. Still they’re nothing like the cavernous warehouses of artillery shells left behind when Russia fled from Kharkiv.
And hey, hopefully those troops helped that grandmother get her appliances back in place.
Even with all those videos linked above, a few more won’t hurt.
You can’t say that Russia didn’t get away with something.
With all of western Kherson liberated (except for that raccoon), expect more coverage of what’s happening on the fronts in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. The situation around cities like Bakhmut and towns such as Avdiivka, continues to be absolutely grim. Ukraine has not surrendered these locations, but the back and forth over ground that has been plowed to a bloody froth continues and the costs are extraordinary. Even as Kherson was being liberated, Russia was turning up the heat in this area in hopes of generating some kind of counter-story for the media.
They’ve even claimed to have completely captured Paviivka. That’s not true. However, Russia has gained a foothold in that town, and Ukrainian troops are being forced to defend what remains block by block.
Nothing happening in the east is anywhere close to the scale of the victory in Kherson. But that doesn’t make the lives of the Ukrainian soldiers fighting there any less significant.
However, what’s happening around Bakhmut isn’t the only place where things are heating up following Russia’s retreat from Kherson. Far up to the north, there’s something else going on.
Fighting is reportedly going on both immediately west of the city, as well as to the NW near the town of Kuzemivka. As of Wednesday, Ukrainian forces were reportedly engaged with Russian troops at a whole series of locations west of the highway.
The “faded” explosions on this map represent the older known points of confrontation. The symbol near Kuzemivka represents the place of a battle that was taking place on Saturday morning. However, the reports from Svatove make it seem as if Ukrainian forces are closer to the city than this map may indicate. It’s possible that the “third ring” of defenses may have been broken at one of the points west of the city.
More information from this area could be coming soon.
Holy crap, what an amazing night! Where do we even begin this week's episode of The Downballot? Well, we know exactly where: abortion. Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard recap Tuesday's extraordinary results, starting with a clear-eyed examination of the issue that animated Democrats as never before—and that pundits got so badly wrong. They also discuss candidate quality (still really important!), Democratic meddling in GOP primaries (good for democracy, actually), and "soft" Biden disapprovers (lots of them voted for Democrats).