Kherson will be an early test of Ukrainian ability to launch a major counteroffensive. In several ways, it is a low hanging fruit. It is close to the current front line (its airport, Chornobayivka, is regularly hit by Ukrainian artillery from Mykolaiv province), located on the wrong side of Dnieper for Russians (opposite from the isthmus to Crimea, the primary supply route, with a single Antonov bridge across), and with hostile population (that demonstrated under Ukrainian flags after the Russian military entered the city). At this point, it is more impo...

[According to lawyers](https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2022/04/30/rasplatnaia-vedomost), the UN charter still has USSR as a permanent member of the Security Council, not Russian Federation, and neither the Security Council, nor the General Assembly, nor the International Court of Justice ever officially transferred the seat from one to the other. Moreover, the preamble to the Belovezh Accords that dissolved USSR stated that it was terminated as a subject of international law. Technically, the permanent seat went with it. Most lawyers interpret the curre...

With the question clarified, my prediction is 87%. Let me analyze how it could resolve negatively short of outright Russian defeat, which is negligibly likely. Full withdrawal of Russian troops to the February 24 borders was envisioned in the Ukrainian Istanbul communique, but that seems very remote at this point. Still, Strana.news, Ukrainian resource with inside sources in Moscow, reported at the beginning of April on "peace party" there that advocated an armistice with a land swap: all of Donbas (within administrative boundaries of Donetsk + Luhansk...

I think the current consensus is way too high because of "the promise to back that guarantee with the deployment of military personnel" and "any other form of assistance, including funding or weapons, will not be sufficient". Even the biggest friends of Ukraine, like Britain or Poland, made it clear that they will not reproduce Article 5 commitment outside of NATO. This is an invitation to get into a direct conflict with nuclear powered Russia, and it would come without any reciprocal commitment from Ukraine. Other named candidates, like France, Germany,...

Perhaps, we overestimated the ability of Russian command to stage and cover an orderly retreat. Volya and Russian bloggers (Moscow Calling, Dimitriev, Alex Parker) report disarray on the bridgehead and panic in Kherson. Rather than holding their positions, Russian troops flocked to the crossings, which AFU is now heavily shelling. Apparently, some of them were under the impression that there was a deal on unhindered withdrawal. There are many Russian casualties, and no organized defense. The panicky field reports, upon which this is based, may be oversta...

Skepticism about Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south is growing rapidly. The reason - lack of weapons. Ukrainian volunteer [Roman Donik wrote on Twitter](https://twitter.com/donikroman/status/1554720954743508992): >"*We have problems with ammo for artillery, the barrels of Soviet calibers. And there is nowhere to get them. Russians have the advantage in artillery. For us to have the advantage for an offensive, we need more cannons than all NATO countries in Europe have combined. *" An anonymous government source quoted by Financial Times suggested ...

As expected, with the end of *rasputitsa* AFU resumed offensive operations. Also as expected, these are not the much talked about "major" operations, but only part of a warm-up for that. Another part, which preceded them and is ongoing, involved derailing trains with fuel and blowing up oil depots in the RF territory, see [Strana.ua](https://strana.today/news/433042-chto-udary-znachat-udary-po-kremlju-neftebazam-v-rossii-kakie-budut-posledstvija.html). As they noted, this has more of a psychological than military effect. Here is [Strelkov's 5/4/23 assess...

And now [it's official](https://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2022/10/20/7372751/). Gromov, speaking on behalf of Ukrainian General Staff, confirmed that RF is determined to hold Kherson by employing the newly mobilized: >"*"Intelligence indicates that in the near future task no. 1 for the RF Armed Forces is to hold the front and stop the Ukrainian offensive on the Kherson direction. The enemy plans to accomplish this task primarily through the first wave of partial mobilization and by increasing the number of groups of RF Armed Forces on the right bank of...

"Declaring" is not Putin's style, Maxim Kac [gives a good review](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYKtjqGEvAQ) of how he operates. There is nothing to gain from it, be it war (i.e. mobilization) or some other tough situation, and much to lose. It is an admission that the "special military operation" is not going well, that everybody's kids may now have to go die (so far the vast majority were from remote regions and not ethnically Russian), etc. Much better to declare nothing and do what needs to be done through obscure orders to subordinates, who are ad...

The explosions on the Crimean bridge, "the most protected bridge in the world", as Russian propaganda was selling it, dealt a heavy blow to Russian morale and put a lot of additional pressure on political leadership. But the physical damage to the bridge itself did not critically disrupt Russian logistics, as [ISW surmised](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-8): >"*The explosion will not permanently disrupt critical Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Crimea, but its aftermath is like...

For some time now I had a sense that Putin's real priorities are at variance with his public declarations, and that he values holding the south of Ukraine more than Donbas. His emotional speeches about Odesa, strange troop movements during the Ukrainian Kharkiv offensive, and keeping the best trained and equipped units around Kherson and Zaporizhia, even reinforcing them while trouble was brewing near Kharkiv, were parts of the pattern. ISW now came to the same conclusion in their [October 1 assessment](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russi...

Some clarification of what is happening on the Kherson bridgehead from independent sources. To the east of Inhulets, Russians are withdrawing in the earnest through the Kakhovka bridge, but units in and around Kherson are mostly staying put for now, although ammunition is taken out through the remaining crossings even there. It does not look like a trap to lure AFU in, but some resistance in that area may be planned, both to cover the retreat and to limit AFU actions around Zaporizhzhia. However, the timeline for such resistance is now a couple of weeks ...

Ukrainska Pravda, one of the main Ukrainian dailies, [published an interview with Kostenko](https://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/articles/2022/10/17/7372211/), the secretary of the Ukrainian parliamentary committee on security, defense and intelligence. He is a Kherson region native, a colonel of special forces and a veteran of the 2014 war in Donbas. Kostenko is much more conservative on the capture of Kherson than the optimistic next week or mid-November dates we heard in recent days. This is, perhaps, an effort to manage expectations, given that the regular...

Ukraine's intelligence chief, [Budanov, said today](https://telegraf.com.ua/ukraina/2022-10-29/5721128-budanov-nazvav-chitkiy-termin-zvilnennya-khersona) that "*the battles for Kherson will be bloody*", but "*will last until the end of November*". I have to say, I am skeptical. The [prediction from Ukrainian military blogger Kovalenko](https://t.me/zloyodessit/17369), who puts the finale at the turn of 2023, makes more sense to me, although it, too, is optimistic. His analysis takes into account both the (seemingly) schizophrenic behavior of RF troops an...

At this point, I estimate the probability of a Ukrainian 2023 offensive towards the sea of Azov as high (70%), and the probability of its success, if carried out, as near certain (80-90%), mostly because it would not be attempted otherwise. This puts the probability of severing the land bridge in 2023 at roughly 60%. What was previously offered as a motto by Arestovych and speculated on by bloggers has now been [laid out and defended]( https://zn.ua/internal/kherson-nash-chto-dalshe-.html) by a general of AFU in a leading Ukrainian newspaper: >"*The ke...

This question would only be interesting with a number under 40%. Pro-Russian separatists already controlled 35% of the territory before the war, and made significant gains since then, they are likely to improve on that in the current grand offensive. Unlike the Kyiv region, Donbas is key to Putin's internal justification of the war, and he is committed there by the official recognition of independence, so the probability of Russian withdrawal from there is negligible. Ukrainian troops currently lack ability to launch strategic counteroffensives, hence th...

The latest Russia's responses to its Ukrainian predicament are the synchronous passage by Russian parliament (Duma) of "military time" laws that introduce criminal responsibility for refusal to serve in the military or surrendering, and announcements of annexation referendums on occupied Ukrainian territories, including the Kherson region. The first is a prelude to announcing general mobilization, and the second is a veiled threat to go nuclear if Ukraine and the West do not relent. This is made explicit in [Putin's speech following his mobilization decr...

British Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) released a 30-page report titled [Meatgrinder: Russian Tactics in the Second Year of Its Invasion of Ukraine](https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/meatgrinder-russian-tactics-second-year-its-invasion-ukraine). It outlines the force AFU are facing in their pending offensive, and explains the reluctance Ukrainians to rush the offensive, their persistent requests for new types of weapons, and playing down of expectations. [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-0...

This question will, likely, resolve positively only if Russia decides to "recognize" a statelet that it can neither effectively control nor assist militarily. There might be some propaganda value to that, but it will create a perfect excuse for Ukraine and Moldova (with Romania's assistance) to crush a pro-Russian enclave, that is itself not too eager to jump in. It makes more sense to keep it as a source of tensions. The probability of such risky recognition is significantly lower than the current 45% average. Judging by the comments on this question, ...

An update on the yesterday's Ukrainian attack from [Volya](https://t.me/volyamedia/437). It might have been an opening salvo of something bigger: >"*According to field reports from the Russian military, the Armed Forces of Ukraine launched attacks in two directions around 8 am. From Novogrigorovka to Kiselivka with up to 5 tactical battalion groups. Officers of the RF Armed Forces say that the strike looked like reconnaissance-in-force and a test of strength. Around 11 am, another attack began in the east. The Armed Forces of Ukraine tried to occupy the...