Arnon Grunberg

Watermelons

Counteroffensive

One the border – Ann-Dorit Boy, Oliver Imhof and Alexander Sarovic in Der Spiegel:

‘The Ukrainian army, as has become clear recently in the border area between Mykolaiv and Kherson, has amassed troops in this part of the front and concentrated its firepower. When DER SPIEGEL reporters visited the area in June and July, they didn’t see nearly as many soldiers or as much materiel as in recent days.
Village squares are full of fighters, many of them recently arrived from other parts of the country. Trucks are transporting crates of munitions, water and food to the front, while military vehicles tow Soviet-made howitzers along the rural roadways. Elsewhere in southern Ukraine, warplanes can be seen on the beds of trucks being brought in for repairs.
Soldiers in the area confirm that the Ukrainians have pushed forward and conquered some tactical positions, but they stress that a long, hard fight lies ahead. Following weeks of bombardment, Russian supply lines have been battered, but they have not been broken.
A Ukrainian counteroffensive had long been awaited in the southern part of the country. In early July, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued orders that such an offensive be prepared, as Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov announced at the time. Even just the announcement was noteworthy, since the Ukrainian government so rarely speaks of concrete military aims. On Monday, after the attack near Kherson had begun, Zelenskyy announced in his daily video address that "Ukraine is returning its own." The occupiers, he said, will be expelled from Ukraine all the way to the border, "which has not changed."
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‘The south, with the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, is indispensable for the Ukrainians. The fields are full of watermelons, tomatoes, wheat and sunflowers, important agricultural goods for the country. Russia has already begun exporting agricultural products via Crimea and other ports. For Putin, access to the Black Sea and the land bridge to Crimea are important strategic objectives. Were the Ukrainians able to regain control over Kherson, the port city of Odessa would become even more difficult for Putin to take. Furthermore, the Ukrainians are also under pressure to produce successes on the battlefield in order to secure long-term military support from their Western backers. It would also take the wind out of the sails of those who would like to see a supposedly inferior Kyiv surrender to the invaders.’

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‘The most immediate goal of such an offensive would likely be that of pushing the Russians back to the Dnieper River. According to estimates, up to 15,000 Russian soldiers may currently be in the Kherson area west of the river. Should they become incapacitated or forced to retreat, it would represent a serious defeat for Moscow. Much of their equipment would likely end up in Ukrainian hands, since heavy equipment can no longer cross the damaged bridges spanning the Dnieper.
The tense expectancy of many Ukrainians is palpable on the social networks these days. Well-known journalist Oleksiy Sorokin recently wrote on Twitter: "I can feel how the whole country is awaiting good news from Kherson Oblast, checking the news every five minutes." The Russians, meanwhile, are playing down the Ukrainian attacks. Russian media has reported that there is neither electricity nor water in Kherson – though they insist that has nothing to do with the alleged Ukrainian offensive, but with an incident at an electrical station under Russian control.’

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‘The real difficulty, though, is not that of advancing into an enemy-held village, but of holding it and supplying it once it has been retaken, says a Ukrainian soldier, who has been fighting on the southern front for most of the last five months. Several villages and settlements in the contested region have been reduced to rubble. The coming days will show whether the Ukrainians can defend their initial gains against Russian counteroffensives.
According to Franz-Stefan Gady, the Ukrainian reserve units now moving forward are undermanned and poorly trained. Military experts believe they are short on air defense systems and armored vehicles, which are necessary for adequate protection. Its Western partners have promised Kyiv the delivery of some air defense systems, such as the NASAMS system, but the plan calls for them to primarily be deployed for the protection of Ukrainian cities. The Ukrainian military, say experts, still lacks sufficient coordination to be able to use them in an offensive role on the front lines.
DER SPIEGEL reporters near the front have seen plenty of military transporters near the front, along with ambulances, but no armored troop carriers. Yet these vehicles are crucial for the protection of advancing infantry. Initial images from the advance have shown unprotected Ukrainian soldiers feeling their way through fields in the Kherson region and sitting on the roofs of vehicles out of fear of landmines. Hardly surprising, then, that Ukrainian soldiers on the southern front have reported painful losses in recent days.’

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‘The British have begun training thousands of Ukrainian fighters in 90-day courses while the EU still hasn’t been able to make a decision about such a program.
The Ukrainian soldiers one meets at the southern front have remained realistic regarding the potential for rapid success. Patience is necessary, says one soldier, saying that he thinks the liberation of significant swaths of land will come in a month. If Ukraine is able to reconquer the part of Kherson that lies west of the Dnieper by the end of the year, he says, that would be an excellent result.’

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‘Currently, the number of Ukrainian troops operating in Kherson remains lower than the Russian total. That has led to a strategy of repeated incursions behind enemy lines, such as the strikes seen recently in Crimea, in an attempt to demoralize the invaders. It isn’t yet clear just how successful this tactic might ultimately be.’

Read the article here.

It seems that the front near Kherson and Mykolaiv has not changed much since the Russians were unable to conquer Mykolaiv, and for that reason it became that they would be unable to conquer Odessa.

Although Mykolaiv and the front is just 140 kilometers from Odessa, from Odessa the front feels as far away as Lebanon.

And how Ukrainian victory will look like is unclear indeed, I’m afraid that the war slowly will fade away, as has happened in Syria. A war with no end, just lower intensity.

And at least fifty thousand Russians soldiers died in Ukraine, probably twenty five thousand Ukrainian soldiers lost their lives. But both sides are very reluctant to come forward with accurate numbers about their losses, And understandably so. How to boost the morale without propaganda?

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