The Strategy Behind Ukraine's Post-Kherson Operational Pause

When your enemy is making mistakes, don't interrupt him. JL

Hunter reports in Daily Kos:

The liberation of Kherson City and frantic retreat of Russian forces across the Dnipro will result in an operational pause along that southern front as Ukrainian troops consolidate new defensive positions facing the river while sussing out just how far Russian forces have fled. A pause in Wagner's attacks on Bakhmut weren't matched in Pavlivka. Russia is continuing to shove troops into the same Ukrainian trap that already wiped out Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade as Russian commanders send insufficient numbers of poorly geared troops into uncoordinated attacks against Ukrainian defenses. 

The liberation of Kherson City and frantic retreat of Russian forces across the Dnipro will likely result in a long operational pause along that southern front as Ukrainian troops consolidate new defensive positions facing the river while sussing out just how far Russian forces have fled. HIMAR systems and other reinforcements from the Kherson offensive are now being dispatched to Donbas frontlines.

Russia, in the meantime, continues to sputter along with attacks that appear premised on killing Russian troops and conscripts as efficiently as possible while making no actual gains. That's not new either, but a momentary pause by Wagner Group mercenaries in their continual but near-pointless attacks on Bakhmut is a bit unusual. Are they running out of prisoners to use as cannon fodder, or just pausing to consider what a new flush of Ukrainian defenses might mean for their little privatized slice of the war?

Who knows, but the pause in Wagner's attacks on Bakhumut weren't matched in Pavlivka, to the south. Russia is continuing to shove troops and equipment into the same Ukrainian trap that already wiped out Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade. Over and over, Russian commanders send insufficient numbers of poorly geared troops into uncoordinated attacks against Ukrainian defenses that quickly mop them up.

It's self-evident why Russia found it necessary to mount a large-scale mobilization. Russian commanders don't know any method of warfare that doesn't depend on piling up Russian bodies until the defenders simply run out of ammo to shoot them with. It's also evident that even at this late date, Russia simply can't reform a kleptocratic military culture in which individual commanders work for their own self-glory (or more often, self-preservation) while thumbing their nose at whatever larger tactical plans their own bosses dream up.

This operational pause by both sides isn't likely to last long. It seems most likely that the action will resume just as soon as the Ukrainian forces that have liberated Kherson and the north side of the Dnipro have been resupplied and repositioned to the likely new Ukrainian priorities: an offensive to cut off Russian troops in and everywhere west of Melitopol, and another to neutralize Russian supply routes passing not just through Svatove, but Starobilsk to its east.

When that might happen, and along what routes, is purely in the realm of speculation. Winter will put new constraints on both attackers and defenders, but Ukraine is much, much better situated for new assaults than Russia’s depleted and newly conscript-stacked forces are.