ISW: Russian Troops Start Retreating From West Of Kherson Region
- 22.10.2022, 8:35
A poorly organized retreat can turn into a stampede.
Russian troops began to withdraw from the temporarily occupied western part of the Kherson region. They probably intend to continue this withdrawal over the next few weeks, but may run into difficulties if the Ukrainian Defense Forces decide to attack.
At the same time, it is possible that the invaders want to blow up the dam of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station and blame Ukraine for this. Analysts at the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) point this out.
The day before, on October 21, the Ukrainian South operational command stated that Russian forces were “quite actively” transferring ammunition, military equipment and some unidentified units from the western bank of the Dnieper to the eastern one via ferries.
Simultaneously, the command of the RF Armed Forces sent 2,000 mobilized men to hold the front line. The enemy continues to shell Ukrainian positions, probably trying to cover their own withdrawal.
The Ukrainian military emphasized that the Russian occupation administration is preparing the evacuation of specialists brought from the Russian Federation, as well as collaborators and the “banking system” of Kherson. The so-called administration in Beryslav and humanitarian facilities in the regional center also ceased their activities.
The withdrawal of Russian forces from western Kherson requires the remaining Russian detachment to hold the line against UAF attacks, covering other occupying forces as they retreat, experts from the Institute for the Study of War say. Such a detachment must be well trained, professional and ready to die “for their comrades” in order to effectively fulfill this duty.
Brigadier General Oleksiy Hromov, Deputy Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, previously estimated that the Russian military leadership could withdraw the “most combat-ready units” from the left-bank part of the region to the right-bank across the Dnieper, and leave the mobilized soldiers in touch to cover the retreat. On October 21, Russian bloggers grasped this assessment and alleged that Ukrainian officials were “falsely claiming” that elite units such as paratroopers and marines were being replaced by untrained conscripts in Kherson.
“But if Hromov's assessment is correct, then the Russian troops are creating the conditions for their retreat to turn into a flight. It is unlikely that the poorly trained, newly mobilized reservists will stand and resist the Ukrainian counterattack if the UAF decides to attack them and pursue the retreating forces. The collapse of the mobilized reservist detachment, which remained in contact, is likely to lead to the Ukrainians defeating the enemy with the same magnitude as in Kharkiv,” the ISW stated.
Analysts noted that the Kremlin is still cautious about whether the head of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin ordered the withdrawal of troops from Kherson, and will probably continue to prepare the information space for its next collapse.
The day before, speaker of the Russian dictator Dmitry Peskov simply evaded a direct question from journalists about the likely withdrawal of troops and “sent” them to the Ministry of Defense for explanations.
One of the Russian bloggers suggested that the Russian troops “will get bad news from the Kherson region” next week and that “November will be very, very difficult”. Before that, propagandists from RosTV also admitted that Ukrainian forces are four times superior to Russian ones and “there will be no good news for the Russians in the next two months.”