UPDATE (11/11/22 2:00pm):
Russia says they have completed the withdrawal from Kherson.
Ukraine’s defense minister said Thursday that Russia will need at least a week to withdraw from the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson and remove all of its forces from the west bank of the Dnieper River.
“It’s not that easy to withdraw these troops from Kherson in one day or two days. As a minimum, [it will take] one week,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told Reuters.
Reports on Thursday said that Russia began withdrawing from some areas in the Kherson Oblast as Ukrainian forces were taking control of villages in the region. Reznikov said there were still Russian troops in and around the city of Kherson, which will likely be the last area that Russia withdraws from.
The Ukrainian defense chief said he expects fighting will slow in the winter. “The winter will slow down every activity on the battlefield for all sides … It’s beneficial for all sides. You will have a rest,” he said. “We will use this time with a maximum result for our armed forces, for regrouping, for refreshing, and for rotation and we will prepare them well.”
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, the highest ranking US military officer, said Wednesday that a winter slowdown in fighting could provide an opportunity for peace talks between Ukraine and Russia. The Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported this week that the US and NATO might think peace talks are possible if Ukraine retakes Kherson.
While there may be a slowdown in fighting, Russia could also be preparing for a major offensive as it has been reinforcing other positions after mobilizing 300,000 fresh troops. But Russia has also maintained that it’s open to negotiations.
The retreat from the west bank of the Dnieper marks the most significant Russian withdrawal since the war began on February 24, as it came after Moscow declared it had annexed the area. Russia had been evacuating civilians for weeks before announcing the withdrawal on Wednesday, and there were signs that troops would also be pulled out.
With Russia stating this is a regroup/repositioning of forces to The Donbas region, they’ll have to fight their way out as this is not a truce.
The Oracle has spoken.
https://news.yahoo.com/street-parties-underway-ukraine-liberates-141645506.html
Having read quite a few comments from various sources about this, I am cautiously optimistic that this might turn out to be a good thing.
The official announcements that I am seeing are almost all about less kinetic war and more economic and cultural decoupling. Oh Western Ukraine can continue to lob missiles into Eastern Ukraine / Russia, but at some point this will be seen more as terrorist activity and less like acceptable military action. They will stop when internal polls show that these attacks hurt America’s image more than they help it.
It is looking like the global economic damage of the war and of the sanctions have overshadowed the kinetic war. For the US, defeating Russia at the cost of a complete economic meltdown would not be seen as a very good victory. The US economy is not doing well, and Europe’s seems to be doing worse. Getting Western Ukraine up to the economic standards of Afghanistan will cost either the US or EU 10s of billions of dollars over the next few months, with recurring charges moving forward. The recent expansion of the economic war against China via chip sanctions will cause dislocations in the Chinese economy – and in the economies of the US, EU, Japan, South Korea, and probably quite a few other nations as well.
I am cautiously optimistic that the only news items that we will hear about Ukraine until say March will be reports about how our awesome new air defense or drones or wonder weapon will defeat the Russians in spring, and other reports about how we need to spend more on military to counter whatever the Russians are claimed to be doing. Basically advertisements for more military spending. Still – a 3 month reprieve would be nice 🙂
Russia has been requesting negotiations since last December. Last December! The senile fool with the aviator glasses sees this as his moment in history. No negotiations that are a compromise for that guy.
Except, wasn’t there an article that said the negotiations talk was a ruse to keep the gravy train coming in Europe? Ukraine used Minsk 2 as a delay tactic to get training and weapons.
I think the expectations are that war will possibly restart some time in the future.
MAYBE.
But it seems to me that the US has demonstrated that it can terrorize enough of the Russian infrastructure without nukes to make a Russian win worthless, and vice versa.
The non-nuclear version of MAD.
Russia won. They liberated Mariopul. Oops the US won. They liberated Kherson.
Time to rebuild. With luck, Kherson and Mariopul will be built back better than the US was. Rebuilding is expensive and hard work. I HOPE that one or both get rebuilt.
Or did you mean,
Russia was massing troops in December. That kind of negotiations?
USA/NATO were arming and training Ukrainians since the regime change in 2014. The NATO and Ukraine did military exercises in Ukraine on a rotating basis making Ukraine a de facto NATO MEMBER. Some 10 military maneuvers were scheduled for 2022. Army Times did report it.
But the EU and NATO are beginning to crumble around him, the senile fool will be left naked, then what? It could turn into the economical and military suicide of the hegemon. The weaponized currency is under attack too, not a small issue.
Tiny amount of money for the US economy. Russia is screwed, if they had grabbed Kyiv in the first days we would have a certain amount of grudging admiration for them. That didn’t happen, they lost and now no reasonable plan B
The Russians lost? They do not want Kiev.
The amount of $$$ out there is a huge amount even for a big economy. Every $ is an IOU. the government will never ever pay off, but a huge devaluation is possible
You are a troll. I block trolls.
Sure, grab as much as you can and then negotiate, if that works it is a great idea.
Italy will stop military support to Ukraine. Looks like the alliance is starting to unravel as expected. Biden is good in making enemies, he is pretty successful doing that. Why Americans get hysterical when the chickens come home to roost beats me.
Italy deciding to not send any more weapons to Ukraine is a huge turnabout from when the PM was described as being ultra pro-Ukraine. This is one of many ways that Russia can win this. Europe has to stay behind the US on this for quite a while for the US to win.
A month or two ago when the US started its fall offensive, Americans made fun of Russia for building defensive trenches close to Russian territory, the idea being that if Russia is going to be advancing into Ukraine, why are they building defensive trenches behind even the current lines?
It seems that Russia has been preparing for this for at least two months. Finally some consistency behind all that Russia has been doing. The idea seems to have been to bait US/NATO forces directly to the front lines, which seems to have worked, and to retreat to a defensive line that they have been preparing for at least the last two months. So Putin has two chances to win. Russia just flat out defeats US/NATO when the US decides to attack, or enough EU nations drop out before an attack even happens. Either way Russia has very short supply lines and very prepared positions.
Prognosis for the future? Nothing happens until the US decides to attack. It would happen at the timing and convenience of the US.
Where did you get the idea that ‘Italy will stop military support to Ukraine‘ from?
European reports as well as some you tube news reports including Chinese News. Do you know that 12 CEOs from big German corporations like BASF and Siemens and other big names traveled with Scholz to China? It is all about business. The war party, the Greens, did not like it.
The reports from Italy i.e. from the new government tells a very different story, so
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/11/10/italy-is-fully-committed-to-ukraine-support-meloni-tells-nato-chief
https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/meloni-confirms-italys-commitment-to-nato-and-ukraine/
So not having seen your sources it is difficult to judge just why you would claim that this is the exact opposite of what Meloni is saying to the cameras on November 10’th 2022.
As for the relocation of the energy heavy industries – that will continue as long as we in EU apply high fees on their CO2 pollution and place no such fees on the same products when importing them from non EU countries. I.e. this was on its way before the invasion of Ukraine and would continue even if EU was to bend the knee to Putin.
Are you kidding? The USA spends close to a trillion dollars a year, year in and year out to protect ourselves against the “Russians” instead a one time payment of 20 billion and some motivated Ukrainians and the “Russian” problem is solved for a generation or more. It is a huge bargain. The amount of money we have spent in Ukraine is a rounding error on the Pentagons budget it is almost nothing.
In theory this means that when US/NATO makes its big push into Russia we will roll over them. We did not roll over much of them in the last offensive – they still control somewhere around 15% of Ukraine’s original territory plus Crimea. If we decide to try – and that is not guaranteed (my hope is we do not as it reduces the odds of nuclear war), the kinetic war will likely be a Shock and Awe War, both ways, and not a scaled back SMO.
Make fun of the idea of “SMO” vs “War” if you wish. I like the fact that no nukes, or even hyper-sonic missiles, have landed in US territory.
Um, no NATO troops are involved, no NATO navies no NATO airforces we are giving the Ukrainians some older systems but not even the best stuff. This is not NATO v Russia this in Russia v Ukraine with a tiny tiny assist from NATO.
Although it’s too early to be sure, it is beginning to look as if Zelensky has decided to allow Russia to withdraw from the west bank of the Dnipro without attempting to storm the Russian forces still in Kherson.
There are rumors that negotiations have taken place, and that this relatively peaceful withdrawal is one of the outcomes. I speculate that Russia has withdrawn its threat to Mykolaiv (protecting 35% of Ukraine’s grain exports), and that Ukraine has withdrawn its threat to the Kakhovka dam (protecting the cooling pond at the nuclear plant at Enerhodar and the North Crimean Canal that provides fresh water to Crimea).
If such an agreement has occurred, it may have the potential to resolve the conflict in the Kherson Oblast. Perhaps both sides have come to realize that a compromise is better than a Pyrrhic victory. Wouldn’t that be nice.
ttps://www.rt.com/russia/566332-kherson-region-withdrawal-update/
Zelensky “allowed”? That corrupt clown isn’t in any position to “allow” anyone anything. Even the US is bypassing him in its covert peace talks with the Saudis and Turks. Zelensky will be told what to do, as he has been since February.
The dam at the Dnieper has been damaged and is leaking. The Russians were worried that the Ukraine (Kiev) forces would do such a thing, and risk the city and Russian soldiers. The Ukraine flag was not raised by persons sympathetic to the separatists, but to Kiev. During “peacetime” expect shelling by Kiev at the Donbas.
Ukrainian Zelensky and Azov people can’t be trusted, no more than Biden and his neocon handlers can be trusted.
Yes and No. As you say, the infrastructure tangle presents a nightmarish Gordian Knot; but, the problem of Minsk I & II is still very fresh, along with the nazi-fication of Washington/Kiev; and, just how you can make a deal with such types until they are seriously and permanently weakened … ? … still, if someone exists who can, his name is Lavrov.
I don’t think the war is over. But it may be over in Kherson, and there are key factors that were not present in the Minsk agreements. It will be Russia, not an independent republic, that Ukraine would be fighting if the incursions continue. The Dnipro River is a formidable barrier, especially against infantry. Although the US is still maintaining appearances that Ukraine is calling the shots, this withdrawal would not have happened without US insistence.
The prospect of Kiev taking out the dam is the fear.
From my reading of history, aside from commercial, the symbolic significance of Kherson as the matrix of Russian Orthodox culture is too great to be surrendered into the hands of Nazis, a profanation that the pious, including most notably Putin himself, would never forgive.
Good to know. Do you think the mass evacuation of civilians might create a “new” Kherson?
I don’t think you can create a new Sacred Ground. But, if peace were possible by conceding the west bank, perhaps a Vatican City type autonomous polis, or some such arrangement, as it’s just as sacred to Ukraine??
Milley and the Ukrainians probably didn’t get the memo — the Russians have completed their pullout. Contrary to Ukraine’s “stay and fight to the death even though it’s hopeless” policy, the Russians care about their soldiers and will not expose them to unnecessary danger.
But you got the memo long time ago. You could’ve shared that with us.
Your news source is super accurate. I envy you.
You are ready to join the Russian Army. Go, they’ll take good care of you.
That is a cheap way to respond, usually it happens when there is nothing to say.
You are right. Nothing to say to that nonsense.
It’s a troll.
Evacuation from left bank started when there was talk about Kiev regime using dirty bomb. So that is at least few weeks ago.
When Kremlin made the public announcement about ‘difficult decisions’ that means evacuation of personal, equipment and civilians was already complete. They wouldn’t make it if they were still evacuating.