Putin's Visit To Kherson Region Emphasizes Its Coming Importance To War

Putin's visited the areas south of Kherson that Russia still occupies, as if to emphasize their importance to his imperial ambitions - and to underscore to his army that he wants it held.

Whether they can meet his demands despite fear of his wrath remains to be seen. JL  

Matthew Bigg reports in the New York Times:

The Kherson region could play a pivotal role in an anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive. Putin visited the Russian-occupied area Monday, in his second trip to an area close to the front lines in a month. Having retreated to the Dnipro River’s eastern side, Russian forces have continued to pound the Ukrainian-held area with a daily barrage of rocket fire, making resumption of normal life impossible. Ukraine has kept the location and timing of any counteroffensive under wraps, but retaking could mean that Crimea becomes divided from Russia.

The Kherson region, in southern Ukraine, was one of the main theaters of war after Russia’s full-scale invasion last year, and it could also play a pivotal role in an anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive in the coming weeks or months.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia visited the Russian-occupied area of the region on Monday, according to the Kremlin, in his second trip to an area close to the front lines in a month. On this latest trip, he also visited a military headquarters in a Russian-occupied area of the eastern region of Luhansk, the Kremlin said.

It was unclear where exactly in Kherson Mr. Putin visited, but photographs and video footage released by Russian state media showed him emerging from a helicopter that had landed in a flat, rural area, typical of the agricultural land — often called steppe — on the eastern side of the Dnipro River.

Russia seized the city of Kherson, the regional capital, in March last year when its troops came north from Crimea and crossed a key bridge across the Dnipro River with almost no opposition. The capture of the city proved to be a high-water mark for the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine so far. It is the only time since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion that it has seized a regional capital.

That success for Russian forces lasted only a few months. Last summer, armed with military aid from the United States and other allies, the Ukrainian government selected the Kherson region as the site of its first major counteroffensive. It targeted Russian forces and military infrastructure in the province with rockets including the HIMARS system. It also fought intense battles across the province on both sides of the river.

Moscow had stationed tens of thousands of troops in Kherson City but, with key bridges destroyed or impassable, they became exposed. Before a full-scale battle for the city began, Russian military commanders ordered a withdrawal to the east bank of the river in November. Ukrainian forces entered the city of Kherson and President Volodymyr Zelensky paid a triumphant visit. Ukraine also retook much of Kharkiv region, in the northeast, in September.

Having retreated to the Dnipro River’s eastern side, however, Russian forces have continued to pound the city and surrounding Ukrainian-held areas with a daily barrage of rocket fire, killing civilians, damaging towns and villages, and making the resumption of normal life virtually impossible.

“Russians shelled Kherson, the central market area. Six people were injured as a result,” the head of Mr. Zelensky’s office, Andriy Yermak, wrote on the social messaging app Telegram on Tuesday.

In all, Russian forces launched 342 shells at the Kherson region in the past 24 hours, Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of Kherson’s regional military administration, wrote on Telegram on Tuesday. That number is typical of the scale of daily attacks.

Ukrainian officials and military experts say that Russia has been building up its forces in the Kherson area, laying mines, increasing troop numbers and constructing defensive barriers, in advance of an anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Ukraine has kept the location and timing of any counteroffensive under wraps, but a campaign to retake land in the south could, if successful, mean that Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, becomes divided from the territory that Russia holds in eastern Ukraine.

It would also make it harder for Russian forces to launch shells across the river at the part of the Kherson region that is in Ukrainian hand