Kherson or Kharkiv?
I am following a little (actually I "enlisted" in #NAFO) the story of the diluted Ukrainians counter-offensive, or the non-counter-offensive, and there are some things that are starting to emerge. For example, Russia hiring Ukrainians right around Kherson.
Let's start from the fundamentals: the choice of the battlefield is NEVER left to the enemy. Doing so, and all the strategists from Cesare to Macchiavelli agree on this (he too wrote an "art of war", read it), is like booking defeat.
And if you have also left the choice of the moment to the enemy, you are doomed.
But when the Ukrainians said they were starting to take Kherson back after months of preparations, they obviously were saying that they wanted to fight around Kherson and that they wanted to do it at that moment: they chose the battle site and the battlefield.
No good.
Now, a general even much worse than Gerasimov would never do such a thing as free troops and go fight around Kherson. Also because the Ukrainians did not choose a moment at random: they chose a moment that they prepared, demolishing the bridges, blowing up the ammunition and fuel depots, and so on.
More 'than an "offensive" (yes and no three Ukrainian brigades are involved, according to their defense ministry) it was therefore an obvious strategic trap. But it was so obvious that hardly anyone would have fallen for it.
If it weren't for Putin in charge, he considers himself a genius of strategy.
Because the order to move to Kherson and defend it could only come from a politician, who gives an enormous symbolic value to a small town after all (even industrially, the typical product is watermelons).
I repeat: no general would ever have ordered the troops to leave their positions to intervene in Kherson, knowing that both the place and the time had been chosen by Kiev. It was DEFINITELY a politician who gave this absurd order. And since there is only one in Russia, it was Putin.
Either way, the obvious happened. Going to fight where the enemy is ready and the moment he is ready, without being ready yourself, you clearly take a lot of blows.
But there is more: to intervene in Kherson, the Russians have discovered Kharkiv, and now the Ukrainians have taken the opportunity to attack there too. If they were to leave Kherson en masse for Kharkiv, the Ukrainians would in fact take Kherson.
In the game of checkers this situation is called "glasses". Strategically it will remain in the history textbooks, but it worked because Putin evidently starts giving orders every now and then.
Stupid.
The problem is that after having covered Kherson of symbolic and propaganda value, Putin cannot lose it. Because whatever you want to say, if they lose Kherson in addition to leaving Krimea exposed to Ukrainian artillery, it is not possible for propaganda to reverse the result. He can't say "everything goes according to plan".
Small digression: a singular thing I noticed about Putin is that when he gives absurd orders to his generals (absurd = they cost a bloodbath) Putin disappears from Moscow with some excuse, such as exercises with China. A sign that he fears his own military, and if he takes Gerasimov with him, he obviously wants to monitor him closely.
Having said that, now the problem is that, as I anticipated in the last post on the subject, Putin must become more aggressive. Or rather, more noisy: he has to fill the newspapers to avoid that anything else ends up on the front pages.
So he has to make more and more huge moves, (if they were nothing more than massacres of civilians) in order to always be he who does things, and never he who undergoes things. On the military level, nothing changes, but this political vandalism prevents him from saying the phrase "we have lost" or "we are losing" at home.
It is interesting to note that, as I wrote in an article some time ago, the characteristic of Russian propaganda is to be emotionally introjected, that is, the Russian does propaganda by reflecting on the enemy something he is afraid of.
And he just tried to scare Europeans with the threat of a cold and hungry winter. Which means that HE is afraid of the winter.
On the one hand, an army without good logistics has good to fear from the winter. On the other hand, if Europe went through the winter without all the disasters that Project Fear mentions, he would find himself a toothless and nailless tiger.
The Ukrainians have managed to turn Kherson into a highly symbolic battle, to give it political value despite its modest military value, and now Putin must keep it at all costs if he is to remain in power.
We will therefore see ads of all kinds, and all absurd. Like "we bought 60 million bullets from North Korea." But the problem is not that shots are missing, the problem is that the logistic chain that leads them to the soldiers has been lost. Even if the Nordkoerans sent them, they would not arrive.
Same thing for Iranian drones. The fact of buying drones from Iran means that the embargo works because you can't build your own, but with the communications not working and no air superiority, what can they ever do?
But the important thing is that at this rate either Kharkiv or Kherson will fall, and this is not something you can tell by saying "everything goes according to plan".
In addition, the famous annexation referendum should have been held in Kherson. If the Ukrainians enter the city acclaimed by the crowd, it would be a problem for Putin.
And I can't really imagine what it would have to come up with to divert attention.
Actually, I'm not sure I want to imagine it.