Russia Forms 'Territorial Defense Units' For Kherson, As Real Troops Have Left

Russian officials are 'inviting' Kherson residents to join territorial defense units to defend Kherson in what is viewed as an admission that elite fighting troops have been withdrawn. 

The Russians plan to use recently mobilized, undertrained and underequipped conscripts thrown in with forced locals to offer a token defense of the crucial city. JL 

Matthew Luxmoore reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Russian-installed officials in Ukraine’s Kherson said they were forming territorial defense units as Russia withdraws elite troops from Kherson and brings in reinforcements largely comprising mobilized soldiers. As Russia’s invasion has stalled and Ukraine has seized the initiative on the battlefield, rhetoric on Russian state television has taken an increasingly aggressive tone with some pundits advocating a no-mercy approach to Ukrainian soldiers and civilians who oppose Moscow.

Russian-installed officials in Ukraine’s Kherson said they were forming territorial defense units on Monday as Kyiv pushes to recapture the occupied regional capital before the onset of winter slows its offensive.

The announcement of these units, which will take part in the city’s defense, comes amid an organized evacuation of residents from Kherson using boats to transfer them to other parts of the southern Kherson region and to cities in Russia, Moscow’s officials in the region said.

Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-appointed deputy head of Kherson region, hailed the success of the city’s defense in a Monday video address where he sat against the backdrop of a map dated March 18, showing the extent of Russia’s occupation of Ukraine before it was driven out of the country’s north.

“Everything is under control,” Mr. Stremousov said, adding that Russia would soon recapture territory it had lost. “Whoever doesn’t like our map, get used to it.”

The military campaign in Ukraine’s south has become the main focus of Kyiv’s forces as Russia withdraws elite troops from Kherson and brings in sizable reinforcements largely comprising mobilized soldiers, Western and Ukrainian officials say.

There is a sense of urgency for Ukraine as temperatures drop. Both armies are girding for the unforgiving weather and shorter days of winter, which will affect health and morale among troops, diminish the effectiveness of weapons and intelligence-gathering and multiply the logistical difficulties of keeping soldiers in the field.

As it moves to strengthen its defenses in the east and south of Ukraine, Russia has opened up a second arena in the war by systemically attacking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with drones and missiles that are leaving large parts of major cities without power for long stretches and prompting authorities to urge residents to limit their consumption. Ukrainian military intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, said Monday that the country had shot down 222 of 330 Iranian-made suicide drones deployed by Russia on the battlefield and in its campaign to sap Ukrainian morale with strikes on critical infrastructure far from the front lines. Ukrainian officials had previously said that 85% of the drones were being shot down.

The U.K.’s Defense Ministry on Monday said Shahed-136 drones in use by Russia have become a substitute weapon of choice in its attacks on infrastructure due to their cheap cost and Moscow’s dwindling supply of high-precision missiles.

“Russia is likely expending a high number of Iranian Shahed-136 UAVs in order to penetrate increasingly effective Ukrainian air defenses,” the ministry said.

As Russia’s invasion has stalled and Ukraine has seized the initiative on the battlefield, rhetoric on Russian state television has taken an increasingly aggressive tone with some pundits advocating a no-mercy approach to Ukrainian soldiers and civilians who oppose Moscow.

On Monday, Kremlin-funded TV channel RT announced it had suspended cooperation with one of its most prominent hosts, Anton Krasovsky, after he called for Ukrainian children who say their parts of Ukraine are occupied by Russia to be drowned in a river or burned alive in wooden houses.

Margarita Simonyan, the editor of RT and a supporter of the war, said Mr. Krasovsky’s comments were “wild and sickening.”

“At the moment I am suspending our cooperation because neither I nor the rest of the RT team can allow for anyone to even suspect that one of us is capable of supporting such nonsense,” she wrote on Telegram.