The order of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to withdraw Russian troops to the left bank of the Dnieper caused a wary reaction in both Russia and Ukraine. In particular, adviser to the President of Ukraine Mikhail Podolyak said that it is too early to talk about the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson, according to him, Russian troops still remain in Kherson.
At the same time, foreign military experts are more optimistic. In particular, analyst Rob Lee noted that Russian troops had been preparing to withdraw from Kherson for a long time: “This is hardly a trap. Over the past few weeks, Russia has been taking steps, preparing to leave the area, and they risk scaring the forward units of the RF Armed Forces by leaving them without announcing it, ”Lee wrote.
“AFU will burn the left bank with HIMARS and artillery”
In anticipation of the expected withdrawal order from the Russian authorities, Def Mon analyst decided to predict the consequences of the withdrawal for the Russian army and published a map showing a zone 70 km from the Dnieper towards the Sea of Azov. The firing range of M31 ammunition for HIMARS is 85 km. Based on this, it can be assumed that if the Armed Forces of Ukraine do not get to the Crimea, then they will probably get to the section of the railway at the entrance to the peninsula.
This is confirmed by Colonel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in reserve, military expert Roman Svitan. According to him, if the Armed Forces of Ukraine enter Kherson, shelling of the northern part of the peninsula will begin. He also recalls that the right bank, which the Russian troops left, is higher than the left, which gives the advantages of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The liberated territory will definitely be fired upon by Russian artillery. There is such a Coriolis force, because of which the right bank of the Dnieper is higher than the left, that is, the western bank is higher than the eastern one. The Armed Forces of Ukraine will be located on the western coast, which means that any counter-battery fight will be won due to the difference in heights and range of Ukrainian artillery. The Armed Forces of Ukraine will simply crush the Russian troops.
“From Kherson you can get to the Crimea, HIMARS will definitely fire at it. HIMARS is a launcher that can support several types of missiles. There are two main ones – M31 with a range of 85 km and ATACMS with a range of 300 km. There is also a third type, PrSM, with a range of over 500 kilometers. The goals of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the near future are logistics chains and facilities related to the transportation of military equipment and supplies. Any military convoy from Crimea will fall under HIMARS at the exit from the peninsula, i.e. leaving Crimea for mainland Ukraine, it will come under fire.
Also, the Russian army will try to liberate Kherson from the left bank from the side of the city of Aleshki. If there is a possibility of a massive transfer, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will move on the shoulders of the Russians to the left bank and hook a bridgehead, and then to the Crimea. And if there is an attack on Crimea, then the Russian group in the Donbass will be forced to pull back. She will block the Crimea and she will have to be transferred: go to Taman and further across the Crimean bridge. When the Russian army leaves the right bank for the left, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will simply burn it to a depth of 80 km with the help of HIMARS and artillery. There are no strategically important nodes there, except that at the exit from Ugledar to Volnovakha there is a railway that feeds the Russian army along the dry land from Rostov.
At the same time, according to independent defense analyst Conrad Muzyka and military expert from the American research organization CNA Michael Kofman, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will not take such risks with HIMARS systems. According to them, so far the Ukrainian military has not taken such actions.
“The HIMARS line of fire, set on the river bank (and on the front line) and within range of Russian artillery, is not how the Ukrainian Armed Forces used their deep-strike capabilities,” Konrad Muzyka writes . However, as the Conflict Intelligence Team analysts noted to The Insider, HIMARS systems are hard to detect. “Hymars looks like a truck, you have to find it first, and by the time you find it and transmit data, it will already have moved.”
What are the goals for MLRS
Military expert Oleg Zhdanov is also confident that HIMARS will be actively used on new frontiers due to the speed of use and mobility of the systems. According to him, back in 2015, the Russian military built a defense line in the Chongar region on the isthmus, like the Maginot Line <a system of French fortifications on the border with Germany, built during World War II – The Insider>, and now there is information that the Russians are building a second and the third frontier.
“These are legitimate targets for Ukrainian artillery. In addition, the Crimean direction is the main communication routes that will be cut at the exit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to the banks of the Dnieper. This is the main line of communication up to and including Melitopol – everything will be under Ukrainian fire control.”
Earlier, OSINT analyst Benjamin Pittet said that preparations for the defense of Crimea in the north seem to have begun as early as October. He analyzed satellite images showing the digging of new trenches in the north of Crimea near Armyansk and Chongar, where there was previously a checkpoint between Ukraine and occupied Crimea. The pictures are dated 5 and 10 October.
Will the APU cross the Dnieper
According to Zhdanov, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will try to force the Dnieper only if they advance from Zaporozhye, otherwise there is no point in crossing the Dnieper – Ukrainian troops will simply be surrounded on all sides, except for Nikolaev.
“However, it is quite possible that Ukrainian troops could use the Dnieper as a frontier to inflict fire damage on Russian troops to delay efforts from other directions,” Zhdanov said. “Moreover, by accessing the Dnieper, we completely block any logistics routes from Crimea for both the Zaporozhye and Donetsk directions.”
Military expert Leonid Dmitriev noted that it is still difficult to predict whether the Armed Forces of Ukraine will attempt to form the Dnieper.
“Now the important tasks are to secure the dam of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station and ensure nuclear safety, that is, to free the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. Moreover, the defense along the river will allow the Armed Forces of Ukraine to strengthen their groupings in other directions. But the likelihood of setting in motion the troops concentrated in the north, in particular, the Belarusian group, is increasing. Right now, there is an interesting and incomprehensible activity of the Russian Navy in the North Sea and in the Baltic in the Kaliningrad region.
Pressure from the West and another “goodwill gesture” of Russia
The order of the Russian authorities to withdraw troops may be a prologue to some agreements, Zhdanov says. For example, in this way Putin, together with the countries of the West, is pushing Ukraine towards negotiations.
“I admit such an idea, but in Ukraine it will cause a social revolt. It is unlikely that our leadership will take the risk of doing this, society is completely unprepared for this. It may well be that Putin is playing zero-sum and waiting for negotiations in exchange for a withdrawal. I think they will use the withdrawal from Kherson. We will still hear statements from Moscow, I have almost no doubt about it, that they again made a gesture of goodwill, and now the goodwill of Ukraine is needed for negotiations. The fact is that Putin’s army is falling apart before his eyes and without a ceasefire he will not be able to cope in this situation, and that is why he puts pressure on him.”
Ukraine will not sit down at the negotiating table with the Russians, stressed Roman Svitan. “The President, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and the people said this. Until the Russian Federation leaves the territory of Ukraine, including Crimea and Donbass, Ukraine will not negotiate with or without the help of the West. There is an extremely sharp rejection of even a hint of negotiations. Even if the president shakes somewhere, he will simply be demolished, and he knows it.”