COMMENTS
The Battle of Waterloo, the Battle of the Somme, and the Battle of Stalingrad. And – then – the battle of Kherson? The city could become a turning point in the war in Ukraine, writes Morten Strand.
RESISTANCE: The residents of Kherson protested against the Russian occupiers in March. Now your city can become famous for all the wrong reasons. Photo: AP / NTB
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Published
Thursday 28 July 2022 – 22:01
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Waterloo, Somme, Stalingrad, Europe does not lack reminders of its bloody past. The three decisive military battles were in the fields outside Brussels, in the fields of the French province, and in a river town on the Volga. Waterloo was the end for Napoleon, the Somme was the great shock of World War I, and decisive in that the battle exposed the futility of trench warfare, and Stalingrad in World War II was the beginning of the end for Hitler.
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We talk about lovable, and relatively lovable, places in Europe’s rich geography. Not so unlike the city of Kherson. Because before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the city of Kherson was perhaps best known because in the 1680s Grigorij Potemkin had it built in record time, so that this conqueror could show it off to his empress and mistress, Catherine the Great. We are talking about the conquest of what the two called “New Russia”, i.e. Crimea and southern Ukraine.
Next to the erotic undertones of the lover Potemkin being able to give this gift to his empress, Kherson was important because it lies where the river delta of the river that defines Ukraine, the Dnipro, flows into the Black Sea. Whoever controls Kherson controls the outlet of the Dnipro. Now the city of Kherson can go down in history for all the wrong reasons, like Waterloo, the Somme and Stalingrad.
Kherson blir the test of whether Ukraine is capable of recapturing important land that Putin’s Russia took in the first phase of the war. The city was taken at the beginning of March, while the Ukrainians were more concerned with defending the capital Kyiv. The administration of Kherson county says that the city “will certainly be liberated by September”. While President Volodymyr Zelenskyj is more cautious, promising that the city will be taken “step by step”.
If so, the first step is already taken. In the British Defense Forces’ daily intelligence report, they said yesterday that Ukraine has probably established a bridgehead in the Russian-controlled areas north of the city of Kherson. It happened after the Ukrainians had bombed the 1,000 meter long Antonivskyi bridge the day before. Other bridges have also been bombed, and it is now believed that the bridges are so damaged that the Russian forces can no longer transport heavy military equipment on them.
Kherson lies by Dnipro’s north-western banks, and if the Ukrainians throw out the Russian forces here, the rest of these forces north and west of the Dnipro will be isolated. The reason the Ukrainians are talking about taking back Kherson is that the effect of Western arms aid is becoming increasingly visible. Ukraine has received 12 Himar mobile missile launch systems from the United States. These are rockets that can hit targets 80 km away with great precision. away, i.e. far inside Russian-controlled territory.
Among other things, the bridges over the Dnipro. But it’s not just about bombing. Because you bomb the bridges and destroy them together, it will also be impossible to get supplies other than heavier military equipment to Kherson. The challenge is to destroy the bridges so much that the Russians cannot get in heavy military equipment, but so little that food and medicine for the civilian population can still be transported on them.
The relationship to the civilian population remaining in the city is a major challenge. Many of the city’s initially almost 300,000 inhabitants still remain, and the Ukrainians cannot carpet bomb their own, as the Russians did to the Ukrainians, including in Mariupol. Ukraine is now receiving tanks from NATO countries. The combination of precision missiles and tanks can change the balance of power on the ground in the south.
But the Russian forces are not standing idly by and watching what is happening around Kherson. According to an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Russians are now carrying out a “massive redeployment” of their forces. This means that they are moving forces from the east to the south, including to Kherson, to defend what they have conquered there.
The inhabitants of Kherson has lived through almost five months of occupation. In the beginning, they showed great civil resistance, including demonstrations against the occupying power. Since then, there have been a number of assassinations against quislings who have gone to the service of the occupiers. At one point, as many as 1,000 people were fleeing the city daily, but many civilians remain in the city, which is now virtually closed. The new rulers have introduced the Russian ruble as currency, and they have announced a “referendum” to give legitimacy to the quisling government. But a partisan movement has also been established, which will be activated when the time is right. There could be a bloody showdown with the Quislings if the Ukrainians take the city back.
Battle of Kherson. Can it be in the history books of the future.
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