In recent weeks, the main military actions in Ukraine by both Russian and Ukrainian armies have been concentrated in the south of the country, in the regions near the main Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea. In the coming weeks, clashes in the south could be important to determine the outcome of the war: for Ukraine, which will try to regain some important territories lost at the beginning of the Russian invasion, notably the city of Kherson, and for Russia, which will try instead to recover the to occupy the entire south and limit Ukraine’s access to the sea as much as possible.
This southward shift is another change in the main front since the beginning of the war: Russia had first attempted to capture the capital, Kyiv, but after numerous problems decided to focus its efforts on the east of the country with the goal of taking control of the entire Donbass region (of which he already controlled several parts). After some important successes, however, the Russian advance eastward has practically stalled.
However, the first signs of the southern shift of the war front did not come from Russia, but from Ukraine, which between the end of July and the first days of August launched a counter-offensive in the city of Kherson, the first city of any importance to be destroyed at the beginning of the war of should be occupied by the Russians. The Ukrainian army destroyed the city’s main communications routes and two important bridges over the Dnieper to isolate Russian troops from the other occupied areas.
South Axis Update:#Russian Forces tried unsuccessfully to advance east of #Mykolayiv City on August 7th. https://t.co/QRNLca81JL pic.twitter.com/uN3PVCjHdB
– ISW (@TheStudyofWar) August 8, 2022
Ukrainian military actions to regain control of Kherson are taking place daily, but meanwhile things are also moving on the Russian side. The Southern Command of the Ukrainian Army said Russia had in recent days massed a large number of troops in the Zaporizhia and Kherson Oblasts, most of which are already under Russian control.
This is information to be taken with caution as there is currently no evidence, but it has also been corroborated by several military analysts and Western government intelligence sources. Clashes between the Russian and Ukrainian armies are therefore expected to intensify in these areas in the coming weeks.
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The main objective of this movement of Russian troops would be to respond to a possible Ukrainian attack, but it is also true that Russia has significant interests in the south.
At present, Russia’s goal, as partially confirmed by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov a few days ago, is to be able to capture all Ukrainian territories bordering the Black Sea, thereby finally closing the maritime drains to Ukraine. However, over the months, Russia has changed its objectives several times, adapting it to the situation on the ground, as happened when it gave up the capture of Kyiv.
This would mean capturing the cities of Mykolayiv and Odessa, two of Ukraine’s most important ports. With the conquest of the south, Russia could also link the areas it controls to Transnistria, a self-proclaimed pro-Russian republic within Moldova.
However, it is not an easy task: compared to the Donbass front, the Ukrainian army in the south is much better equipped to resist and repel a Russian offensive. In particular, HIMARS rocket launchers, supplied by the United States to the Ukrainian army, were among the main weapons used at the beginning of the counteroffensive to recapture Kherson and could be fundamental to continuing the war in the south.
In the coming months, Ukraine is expected to receive even more weapons from western countries, but the counter-offensive launched in Kherson seems to show that the Ukrainian army wants to attack as soon as possible to retake the Russian-held areas in the south. As Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told Der Tagesspiegel, Ukraine expects new weapons to arrive as soon as possible in order to speed up military operations in the south and prevent Russia from taking the time to develop new ones Weapons bring soldiers to the front. “The more heavy weapons we have and the quicker we have them, the sooner we can end this war.”
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