Justin Bronk

Ukraine’s Kherson offensive may have already been a success

Black smoke rises at the front line in Mykolaiv Oblast (photo: Getty)

The Ukrainian armed forces launched a longawaited offensive on Kherson this week. However, the counter-offensive was signalled for so long by both Ukrainian and western sources that the Russian army had plenty of time to significantly reinforce its positions there, meaning that the Kherson front is now more heavily manned by Russian troops than most other stretches of the frontline.

Ukrainian government sources have requested a total blackout of media reports from the frontlines so exact details are sparse. But what is clear is that the Russian movement of forces has already had two positive effects for Ukraine, even before the actual counter-offensive operation was launched.

The first has been to further reduce the Russian army’s capacity to conduct large-scale offensive operations against Ukrainian positions in the Donbas by diverting already depleted and overstretched units, artillery and other things like electronic warfare equipment and air defences down south to defend Kherson. In other words, signalling a southern counter-offensive has forced the Russian army’s limited mobile reserve forces to be deployed to a largely defensive position ahead of the Ukrainian offensive. This has handed Ukraine the initiative for arguably the first time since the invasion began in February, although tactical-level Russian offensive activity continues in the Avdiivka and Bakhmut areas of the southern Donbas with some local success.

To avoid heavy urban fighting, Ukrainian forces are likely to try and break through the Russian defences north of the city itself

The second success of the Ukrainian strategy is that in addition to reducing offensive pressure in the Donbas by forcing the Russian army to redeploy key forces south, many of the Russian units now in Kherson have had their offensive capabilities reduced – and are now potentially more vulnerable than anywhere else on the frontlines. This is because the key Russian-occupied city of Kherson and its surrounding area are on the western bank of the Dnipro river, on the same side as the Ukrainian army. 

Screenshot_2022-09-02_at_12.39.18.png
Red: Rus advance, Blue: Claimed Ukr counteroffensive, Yellow: Claimed Rus control, Blue stripes: Reported Ukr partisan warfare (map: ISW)


As such, Kherson is only accessible from Crimea and the rest of the Russian army in Ukraine via a few key bridges across the river.

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Written by
Justin Bronk
Justin Bronk is the Research Fellow for Airpower and Technology in the Military Sciences team at RUSI. He is also Editor of the RUSI Defence Systems online journal.

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