Ukraine's Kherson Campaign - Lessons & Implications of the Southern counterattack

Sponsored by Ground News: Compare news coverage. Spot media bias. Avoid algorithms. Be well informed. Download the free Ground News app at: https://www.ground.news/perun Description: While much of the narrative around the early stages of Russia's 2022 invasion centre on the battle for Kyiv and the reverses Russia suffered there, in the South, the Russian invasion was altogether more successful in its opening moves. Advancing from Crimea, the Russians rapidly secured a number of critical positions in the South of the country, including a regional capital on the right bank of the Dnipro, the city of Kherson. The fighting to take back Kherson would be some of the hardest for Ukrainian forces. They would face a number of high quality Russian units who were heavily dug in, and they would do it over unfavourable ground. The fighting would take months and claim many lines before the final Russian withdrawal in November. This is the story of that campaign - from the city's fall to its liberation, along with some of the lessons and observations that we can (with admittedly low confidence levels) make using the data available so far. Caveats: Data quality and certainty will always vary video to video. In the case of this video, the topic in question is battlefield movements and the conduct of operations. As such, there is a considerably lower level of confidence than there are over major economic patterns for example. I expect that at least some of this analysis will be refuted or augmented by later discoveries or data releases - at which point I will prepare an update. But given the implications of this campaign, I thought it best to try and tell the story now, with the best information we currently have available. Patreon:   / perunau   Further Reading/Sources: Several maps used credit of the Institute for the Study of War, eg. https://www.understandingwar.org/back... Visually confirmed loss statistics as per Oryx: https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02... (and Ukr equivalent) RE: Russian media statements - special credit to the work of people like Julia Davis & Wartranslated https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews?re... https://twitter.com/wartranslated?ref... Telegram extracts from both the Russian MoD and Russia's Kherson administration are used - as always I do not link directly to these but they are credited here Regarding the Antonovski campaign - the best thread documenting strikes and inadvertent BDA is maintained by the Twitter User Special Kherson Cat   / bayraktar_1love   https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/s... Graphics from the videos of Kings and Generals Included:    • How Ukraine Won the First Phase of the War...   And as always thanks to other OSINT channels and aggregators, including Ukraine Weapons Tracker https://twitter.com/UAWeapons?ref_src... ....and to all those interviewed or questioned directly in preparation for this video. Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Opening Words 00:02:36 — What Am I Talking About? 00:03:18 — SPONSOR: GROUND NEWS 00:04:29 — The Fall of Kherson 00:07:20 — Victory at Mykolaiv 00:09:34 — Steady Transition 00:10:19 — The Shaping Campaign 00:12:06 — Telegraphing the Offensive 00:14:25 — The Himars Campaign 00:16:51 — The Crimean Dimension 00:17:51 — Concentrating Capability 00:20:00 — The Campaign Begins 00:21:44 — The Attack Goes In 00:22:42 — Russia Claim Victory 00:24:52 — Announcing Victory 00:26:04 — Continuing Pressure 00:27:21 — Supply, Attrition, Corrosion 00:28:05 — The Story of a Bridge 00:29:33 — Back and Forth 00:31:45 — Final Days 00:32:55 — The End 00:33:04 — The First Cracks 00:34:42 — The Withdrawal 00:39:03 — Reclamation 00:40:09 — Losses and Military Observations 00:44:39 — New Capabilities... 00:46:06 — ... And Old Ones 00:47:10 — The Cost of Victory... 00:47:52 — ... And of Defeat 00:49:10 — Interrogating Losses 00:50:48 — Some Very Old Stuff... 00:53:33 — Reactions & Significance 00:53:52 — Ukrainian Elation? 00:55:35 — Russia - Confusion and Anger 00:57:39 — International Community 00:58:55 — Discrediting "Annexation" 01:01:00 — What Next? 01:01:12 — Reading the Terrain 01:03:55 — Redeployment Opportunities 01:05:23 — Towards a Winter Campaign 01:07:24 — Conclusions 01:10:19 — Channel Update