Are Battle Lines in Ukraine Shifting Back to Center?

Just days after the attack on the Crimean bridge that dealt a humiliating blow to the Kremlin, battle lines in Ukraine could be shifting back to the central part of the country. While the explosion at that key piece of infrastructure in Russian-occupied Crimea upped the ante in the war, hostilities on the ground are heating up around Kherson.In a new report, the British ministry of defense says that the Russian “occupation authorities” have likely evacuated some civilians from the city because “they anticipate combat extending to the city of Kherson itself.” That follows a partial Russian retreat north of Kherson earlier this month.According to British intelligence assessments, Russia is trying to consolidate a new front line west from the village of Mylove, which is 12 miles northeast of Kherson on the west bank of the Dnieper River. The British intelligence report says Ukrainian advances in that area essentially mean that Russia’s flank is no longer protected by the Inhulets River, a tributary of the Dnieper. Following Ukraine’s successes in liberating Kharkiv last month, a shift in focus to Kherson is logical. How Russia intends to shore up its thinning resources there is unclear. One way might be by employing more of the by now expected rudimentary means: aerial bombardment.Early on Thursday the capital region was struck by Iranian-made kamikaze drones, the AP reported, as residents awoke to air raid sirens for the fourth consecutive morning following renewed Russian attacks across the country that began earlier this week and that killed at least 19 people and wounded more than 100. Whether the drone strikes around Kyiv caused any casualties was not immediately clear, but Ukraine’s air defenses have so far reportedly downed dozens of incoming Russian missiles as well as a number of the Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones. Elsewhere in the country Moscow stepped up more bombardments by other means on Thursday.The Kyiv Independent reported that the Russias fired eight S-300 missiles at Mykolaiv, with an unspecified number hitting a high-rise apartment building. In that attack one person was reportedly killed and two civilians injured, including an 11-year-old boy. Even if Russia’s previous failures on the ground look set to repeat themselves at Kherson, there is little doubt that the aerial barrages will continue. That prompted the British defense secretary, Ben Wallace, to announce on Wednesday that “Russia’s latest indiscriminate strikes on civilian areas in Ukraine warrant further support to those seeking to defend their nation. So today I have authorized the supply of AMRAAM anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine.”The Telegraph reported that those advanced medium-range air-to-air missile rockets will be usable with the U.S.-provided surface-to-air missile systems and will arrive in Ukraine in the coming weeks.Even France is stepping up to the plate to help Ukraine meet the growing challenge of reducing the threat of Russian attacks from the sky. President Macron told France 2 television, “We’re going to deliver … radars, systems and missiles to protect them from these attacks.” He did not specify which systems Paris will be sending, but it is likely they will complement what the Pentagon is sending, which in addition to the anti-aircraft units will, according to the AP, also include aerial drones for information gathering and logistics support, plus 18 more howitzer artillery guns.Which brings us back to Crimea. There has been much chatter of late about the fate of the peninsula, and President Zelensky has previously stated that the Russian invasion of Ukraine really started with Crimea and in his estimation will end with the region’s liberation.Some people, such as Elon Musk and possibly even Mr. Macron, may have other opinions about the eventual status of the peninsula that Vladimir Putin snatched from Ukraine in 2014. In a rare public statement about French nuclear forces, the French leader also said on Wednesday that if Russia uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine, France would not respond in kind. French interests “wouldn’t be directly affected at all if, for example, there was a ballistic nuclear attack in Ukraine, in the region,” he said.Make of that what you will. In any case, Crimea possibly won’t belong to Mr. Putin indefinitely — at least not on his terms. The reality, though, is that the war is into its eighth month and all of Ukraine remains in the Kremlin’s sights.

Are Battle Lines in Ukraine Shifting Back to Center?

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