“Retreat is pure politics. Kherson is an ideal fortress” – Russian journalist
Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson has exclusively political implications, since according to all data, Ukraine was no longer preparing for a big battle on this bridgehead, since it simply did not have the means or personnel for this.
Pyotr Skorobogaty, editor of the politics department and deputy editor-in-chief of the Russian magazine Expert, stated this in an interview with Israeli journalist Alexander Waldman, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“I said that there would be no big battle for Kherson, because I simply don’t see any prerequisites for it. And most importantly, there are no signs on the fronts that the Ukrainians are preparing for such a big battle. As a matter of fact, even now at the beginning of this week before the announcement of withdrawal (from Kherson - ed.) there were no signs of Ukraine preparing for a big campaign. On the contrary, from the point of view of the big battle for Kherson, they lacked a very large range of weapons and personnel.
The group was not preparing there for an attack on Kherson. Therefore, the argument that we avoided major casualties, because there would definitely have been a big battle for Kherson, is not accepted. The military aspect is not accepted,” says Skorobogaty.
He believes that Kherson was an ideal springboard to control the possibility of enemy attacks and simply wear down the Ukrainian group.
“If Russia set the task of inflicting unacceptable damage on the Ukrainian group, the Ukrainian army, then holding the Kherson bridgehead would be an ideal place for this. It’s even difficult to think of any other direction where the situation would be so good for Russia - in the sense that it would be possible to wear out Ukraine for a long time in rearguard battles, that is, on the outskirts of Kherson.
Everything held up well there, everything was well shelled, there was no need to carry a gigantic amount of weapons across the crossing, because it would have been possible to control this offensive from our shore.
I talked about the Volchansk fortress, it would have been great to make the strongest fortress of Kherson, bring supplies, weapons, civilians there - no, they took everyone out. As they say, fight - I don’t want to,” he reasoned.
“In this sense, we understand that this was not Russia’s main task. It was not a military decision that was made. A political decision was made for other reasons,” the journalist concluded.
"Retreat is pure politics. Kherson is the ideal fortress" – Russian journalist