The Atlantic: “Ukrainian officials, defending their country against Russian aggressors, began doing something in July that seemed odd, even counterintuitive: They started speaking loudly and regularly about their plans to liberate Kherson—a key southern city that Russia seized only a week after invading Ukraine on February 24. Indeed, the Ukrainians telegraphed their intentions in a way that the Russians could not mistake. This was like waving a red cape at an angry, incompetent bull. Almost immediately, rumors proliferated that the Russians were racing reinforcements to Kherson to prepare for the Ukrainian attack.”
“Goading the Russians into doing so seems to have been the Ukrainians’ exact goal. Fighting in Kherson plays to Ukrainian strength far more than to the Russians’. Russian occupiers in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas, where the war had been concentrated from April until July, can operate very close to the Russian border, seem to have solidly functional rail lines, and are currently trying to pressure the Ukrainians from two sides at the tip of the fighting around the town of Siversk. Fighting in Kherson, by contrast, nullifies almost all of Russia’s advantages in the Donbas. The Russians are at the edge of their supply lines, while the Ukrainians can maneuver around them.”
Wall Street Journal: Ukraine’s eastern advance puts forces close to key town.
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