Opinion | Will it be 'this time lucky for Ukraine and Kherson', don't count on it

By Tom Fowdy

On Monday, Ukrainian sources announced that they had initiated an offensive against Russian-held territory in Kherson Oblast, claiming without verification that they had "broken the first line of defence" and had seized several villages. The news very quickly, as usual, surmounted itself to a tidal wave of hysteria and hype across social media, with mainstream news outlets later following with the unanimous line that the "long-awaited Kherson counteroffensive" had finally begun, a specific event that they had been heralding, or already said was ongoing, for the space of months.

Given this longstanding hype, Ukraine has never made any secret of its plans regarding this region, consistently claiming that it will successfully retake it "in a matter of time" yet otherwise with a continually contradicting slew of publicly professed deadlines. Only several weeks ago did a Ukrainian general confidently tell the BBC that they will "retake the city within weeks" claiming that they will "aim to cut the Russian sources into two groups". Whereas other Ukrainian sources, including Zelensky himself, vowed to retake the entire region before September.

It goes without saying that this rhetoric has been high on style and minimal on substance. In practice, the hype about Ukraine potentially retaking Kherson has lingered for months and never at any point has Kyiv demonstrated any serious ability to do so. The frontline has in reality been a back-and-forth tug of war whereby a mere few villages have repeatedly changed hands, with Russia having even recently made gains eastwards towards the city of Nikolaev. Thus, in repeatedly being ambiguous about when the formal announcement of this attack had started, it is obvious Ukraine has attempted to mask multiple failed attempts, but may be gambling on doing so now.

Everyone who follows Ukraine's war efforts with the skepticism it deserves should already be aware of the running theme, and especially so on social media, that all rhetoric regarding its own efforts tends to be overwhelmingly exaggerated, and its supporters have almost always boasted of outcomes which have never materialized. This has only been amplified by uncritical backing from the western media. In reality, Ukraine has never demonstrated any offensive ability against Russia whatsoever than the simple ability to push the invasion force backwards in areas where they have been geographically exposed and overextended from at least three angles. Even then, this has only involved the recapturing of villages, not towns or fortified settlements.

Ukraine's strategies against Russia are conditioned on the aspect of having limited armor and heavy weapons, but surplus manpower projection. It means they can squeeze Russia on their weak flanks, but they cannot pursue a head on confrontation where Russian forces are fortified and entrenched due to their significant artillery advantage. This is why in the Eastern region of Donbas, Ukraine has not been able to initiate a signal counterattack against Russia at all, allowing Moscow to win the significant battles in Luhansk Oblast without incurring significant losses. Kherson however, is a different game owing to its flat and completely open terrain. This makes it difficult to defend, but nonetheless equally costly to attack.

Given such circumstances, if Ukraine attempts to charge forwards, it will be subjected to heavy bombardment from Russia and experience heavy losses. This has been traditionally enough to stop Ukraine in any other position where they have not been outflanked. However, leaders in Kyiv may be desperately seeking a "morale victory" in order to vindicate their political goals and to keep hope in their war effort alive. It cannot go unnoticed that Ukrainian leaders have spoken relentlessly about their goal to "liberate" all captured territory from Russia despite the obvious lack of realism behind it, and pursuing such offensives are key to keeping that narrative alive.

Yet in the view of such potentially unfounded hype, failure to do so will almost certainly have significant consequences for the credibility of Ukraine's war effort, and it should not be forgotten that Russia still has escalation options. This may make the events ahead in Kherson one of the defining battles of the war, once which has now waged on for six months and there is still no end in sight. Either way, the social media hysteria surrounding it continues to be aptly unhelpful in analyzing events on the ground and for this particular battle, only time will tell in the end.

The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.

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