Despite the recent statements of the Ukrainian leadership about the success of the army on the Kherson front, the troops have barely moved for weeks. Credit… Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times
MYKOLAIV REGION, Ukraine — In their summer campaign to drive Russian troops out of the southern Kherson region, Ukrainian forces have decimated Russian command centers and ammunition depots, cut supply lines with strikes of precision at key bridges and have sown terror among the collaborationist officials with a large amount. of car bombings, shootings and, Ukrainian officials said, at least one poisoning.
But in the sun-drenched fields along the western border of the Kherson region, Ukrainian fighters who should be called upon to deliver the final blow in any successful effort to retake territory remain trapped in their trenches. Cuts to Russian supply lines have yet to erode Moscow’s forces’ overwhelming advantage in artillery, ammunition and heavy weaponry, making it difficult, if not impossible, for Ukrainian forces to advance without suffering huge casualties.
“We definitely need a counteroffensive, I honestly believe it will come,” said a 33-year-old lieutenant with the call sign Ada, who commands a trench outpost in the neighboring Mykolaiv region, a few miles from Russian lines in Kherson.
But he added: “We need the advantage in numbers, we need the advantage in heavy weapons. Unfortunately, that’s a bit of a problem for us.”
Although Ukrainian troops have not advanced in Kherson for weeks, their artillery campaign appears to have paid off, stemming the flow of Russian weapons, equipment and troops into the region, Ukrainian officials say. Using high-precision weapons such as the US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, Ukrainian forces have struck all three bridges over the vast Dnipro River that connect thousands of Russians to their supply lines in occupied Ukrainian territory east of the river.
The strikes have rendered those bridges “inoperable,” said Nataliya Gumenyuk, the spokeswoman for the Ukrainian military’s southern command. Over the weekend, Ukrainian forces launched another attack on the Antonivsky Bridge, the main supply artery to the city of Kherson.
“We clearly understand that the occupiers depend on these arteries to continue to bring in reserves and ammunition and military equipment,” said Ms. Gumenyuk.
The question now is whether this pressure on Russia’s supply lines will be enough to cripple the fighting ability of Russian troops and perhaps force the Kremlin to order at least part of the force to withdraw from Kherson and retrace its steps through the River. Several Ukrainian officials in the region said this week that some Russian field commanders had already begun moving their headquarters east of the river, although two senior Ukrainian military officials said there was no evidence of that .
At the front, a barrage of Russian attacks inevitably kills a handful of Ada troops each day, said Lt. A day earlier, a grade rocket nearly charred the grass around one dugout position, and on the nearby field, the tail section of another rocket was visible sticking out of the ground. Periodically, a low-decibel thump echoed across the plains.
It is the same along the entire Kherson front of about 50 miles, which cuts roughly from north to south through fertile fields. Ukrainian commanders and military analysts say any forward launch would require far more troops and equipment than Ukraine currently has in the Kherson theater.
Refugees from Kherson cut up clothing to use as camouflage for Ukrainian troops near Mykolaiv last month. Credit… Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times
Meanwhile, Russia has shifted resources from the fight to eastern Donbas to bolster its positions in the south.
Major General Dmytro Marchenko, the commander of Ukraine’s forces in the region, recently acknowledged frustrations with the slow pace of Ukraine’s efforts to retake Kherson, but said he could not give a timetable for at the start of major offensive actions.
“I want to tell the people of Kherson to be a little patient, it won’t be as long as everyone expects,” General Marchenko said in an interview last week with RBK-Ukraine. “We have not forgotten about them, no one will abandon our people and we will come to help them, but they have to wait a little longer.”
If the Ukrainians can completely break the bridges over the Dnipro and keep them cut off, the Kremlin will have no choice but to withdraw some forces or force Russian troops to fight with limited supplies and “hope they do,” said Phillips P. O’Brien. , professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
“If they haven’t built sizable reservoirs on the west bank, you’d think they’d be in major trouble in a matter of weeks,” he said.