Bob Homans Sitrep April 27

20220428

Ukraine – 4/27 Sitrep
By: Robert Homans
@rhomansjr
April 27, 2022

You will have to make do with some of my thoughts today. (Homans thoughts)

Looking back on our earlier emails, what has been missing recently is some more granular information on some of the places where fighting has been taking place.   I was able to provide this context when much of the fighting was in and around Kyiv.  I knew the territory, I’ve been to Bucha and Irpin, I used to enjoy cross-country skiing in the forest around Vinograda that separates Kyiv from Bucha and Irpin, and I know most of the approaches to Kyiv.   Unfortunately, I have never been to either Kharkiv or Mariupol, or many other places where battles are now taking place.  

Kherson

However, there are cities where I have visited, where fighting is either going on, or recently stopped, so I will share some of my observations.   Yesterday, I started with Zatoka, southwest of Odessa.  Today, I will share my thoughts about Kherson, where I visited in the Summer of 2012.   In the next few days, I will talk about Chernigiv and Sumy, two cities close to Russia where, other than missile strikes, fighting is no longer taking place.

Kherson and Mykolaiv, the latter a short distance to the west, stand between Crimea and Russian access to Odessa.   Kherson sits on the side of a hill, sloping down toward the Dnieper.

Over the last several years Kherson has grown in strategic importance to Ukraine, especially as commercial barge traffic on the Dnieper River has increased.   Kherson sits near the mouth of the Dnieper River, where it empties into the Black Sea.   A dam located in Kherson Oblast is the source of much of Crimea’s fresh water, via the North Crimea Canal.   Since 2014, when Crimea was invaded, Ukraine blocked the canal entrance.  I believe that Crimea’s water supply still has not been restored.

Without Ukrainian control of Kherson, Dnieper River traffic is largely curtailed.   Kherson is nominally controlled by Russia, whereas Mykolaiv is under Ukrainian control.   Lately, the Ukrainian Army has been counterattacking south toward Kherson from the west and northwest.   I am quite certain that at least some of the heavy weapons being delivered by the U.S. and other allies will very soon be brought to bear in Kherson.  

Unlike much of the rest of Ukraine, a significant portion of the farming area around Kherson has, over the years, been irrigated.   The irrigation system goes back to Soviet times, and a significant portion needs repair.

South of Kherson there is a thumb of Ukrainian territory located between the Dnieper River and the Black Sea.   This area is partly forested.   If Ukraine can push the Russians out from Kherson and back across the Dnieper, this area would be heavily contested because it lies between Kherson and access to Crimea.

During my visit to Kherson in 2012 I spent 3 hours talking with a farming operator who farms 1,200 hectares (almost 2,000 acres) in this area.   He farms mostly potatoes.   He said he has another farm of approximately the same size near Chernigiv, north of Kyiv, where heavy fighting took place until the Russian retreated.  At the time we spoke he sold most of his potatoes under his own brand, to a company called Fozzy that owns several markets throughout Ukraine.

When we spoke, he said he was leasing his Kherson land from approximately 400 individuals, all of whom were living in the village, and most of his lessors held jobs at the farm – they get income from both lease payments and salaries.  At the time of our meeting, it was impossible to buy or mortgage farmland in Ukraine.   He said that once the moratorium on the sale/mortgaging of farmland is lifted, he would be able to exercise his purchase options on the farmland he was leasing, buy land outright, and fire most of his employees/lessors.

Kherson, like most other cities in Ukraine, has had its share of corruption.   Kateryna Handziuk, a native of Kherson, was a local anti-corruption activist.   Local activists like Kateryna are often in more danger than national figures because they get less media coverage.   On July 31, 2018, Kateryna was attacked while in Kherson, and the attackers threw sulfuric acid in her face.  She died of her injuries the following November.   On April 25, 2019, U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was presiding at a ceremony honoring Kateryna Handziuk, with Kateryna’s parents present, when she was notified that she was being recalled back to Washington, D.C.

Kherson is too important to be left in Russian hands.   There are reports that Russia is attempting to organize a referendum covering Kherson Oblast, with the result being that Kherson would become a people’s republic, similar to Donetsk and Luhansk.   Reports are that the locals aren’t cooperating.   Even though Kherson is located in that part of Ukraine where a majority are Russian speakers, almost all are loyal to Ukraine.

A Couple of Articles from the “Economist”

“Why So Many Russian Generals are Dying in Ukraine?”   In Ukraine, Russian generals are dying at the same rate, 6 per month, as were killed in the period between the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, in June 1941, and November 1942, when the German Army encircled the Soviet Army at Stalingrad.   Some of the reasons for the large attrition include factors that the pundits said the Russians had addressed since the 2008 invasion of Georgia, including:

·       Poor Tactical Communications – Communications breakdowns have resulted in generals having to go closer to the front, where they become susceptible to Ukrainian snipers.

·       Lack of Professionalism in the Ranks – The Russian Army that has been sent to fight in Ukraine was supposed to be a highly-motivated professional army.  That is what the pundits said.   In fact many of the Russian soldiers sent to Ukraine are conscripts with limited training, have poor morale, lack motivation and, in many cases, come from poorer regions of Russia, or parts of Russia that are home to ethnic minorities.

·       Poor training of junior and non-commissioned officers – Generals often conclude that they only way their orders can be carried out is to give the orders themselves, increasing the risk of being shot by snipers or, probably in some cases, by their own men.

·       Armored columns sent forward without tactical air cover or infantry support.   In and around Kyiv, because of poor maps and poor planning, armored columns ended up in cul-de-sacs with no exits.

“An Interview With Oleksiy Arestovych, Military Adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskyy”  Arestovych has attained near totemic status in Ukraine, due to his accurate predictions about the war, including:

·       In 2019 Arestovych predicted that Russia would invade Ukraine in 2022.

·       He predicted the invasion would come from several directions.

What does he predict now?

·       “The deciding phase of the war, he thinks, will in fact last no more than two to three more weeks. The most serious battles are already under way in Donbas, where Russia is trying to overcome elite Ukrainian troops using “small and large pincer movements””

·       “Russia has assembled perhaps 25,000 soldiers and support personnel to push its main axis of attack through the town of Izyum (southeast of Kharkiv). That is not enough to overcome Ukrainian defences, Mr Arestovych argues—especially if they are supplemented by new deliveries of Western long-range artillery and radars, now on their way.”

·       “As the greenery starts to grow all over Ukraine, we’ll find places to hide and do what we do best: trap them and kill them, one by one.”   This counters the accepted description of Donbas as being “open country,” where there are limited opportunities to conduct ambushes that were so common around Kyiv.

·       “He contradicted the soldiers’ own claims that munitions in the besieged port city (Mariupol) could run out in a matter of days. “They have been preparing for this moment for years before the war. I know for a fact that they have enough munitions, food, and medicines for weeks to come.”“   He thinks that the Russians will eventually agree to a humanitarian corridor, because the war will be going badly for Russian forces to the north, around Izyum and Kramatorsk, that the only way they can resolve Mariupol is to agree to let the Ukrainians withdraw, perhaps under UN protection.

·       ““I believe a tactical nuclear strike is being considered in Moscow.” But any strike would increase Ukrainian and foreign resolve—and make it much harder for China to go on offering Russia even lukewarm support.”

His Conclusions:

·       ““We have a Cossack drive. We cackle with laughter when we shoot Russian tanks.” Russia’s insistence on sticking to outdated doctrines, against unrealistic deadlines set by a detached leader, will prove to be its downfall, he predicts.”

·       “The Kremlin is not simply concerned with territory or industrial or military potential, he thinks. “They want us to become like them. They want to turn us into demons. We simply can’t let them do this.””