Weekly megathread for news/updates/discussion of Russian invasion of Ukraine - November 10

US to buy South Korean howitzer rounds to send to Ukraine (AP)

The U.S. will buy 100,000 rounds of howitzer artillery from South Korean manufacturers to provide to Ukraine, a U.S. official said Thursday, in a deal the two governments have been working on for some time.

The agreement comes as Ukrainian leaders press for more weapons and aid to take advantage of a counteroffensive that is pushing Russian forces out of some areas they had taken over earlier in the war. And it relieves concerns within the U.S. military — particularly the Army and the Marine Corps — who are worried that persistent transfers of the Pentagon’s howitzer ammunition to Ukraine are eating into their stockpiles.

Other defense officials confirmed the broad outlines of the contract and said it would help with stockpile pressures, specifically involving the howitzer ammunition, which Ukrainian forces have been using at a high rate. Last week a defense official briefing reporters said Ukraine was burning through as many as 7,000 rounds of ammunition a day, while Russia was firing as much as 20,000 rounds daily.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the deal had not been made public.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry in a statement acknowledged ongoing talks over exporting an unspecified number of 155-millimeter artillery shells to shore up diminishing U.S. inventories. However, the ministry said the negotiations were proceeding under the presumption that the U.S. would be the “end user” of those rounds and that Seoul maintains its principle of providing only non-lethal support to Ukraine.

Ukrainian troops greeted with joy in Kherson after Russia retreats from strategically key city (Reuters via CBC)

Jubilant residents welcomed Ukrainian troops arriving in the centre of Kherson on Friday after Russia abandoned the only regional capital it had captured since its invasion in February.

"Today is a historic day. We are getting the south of the country back, we are getting Kherson back," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an evening video address.

"As of now, our defenders are on the outskirts of the city, and we are very close to entering. But special units are already in the city," he said.

Russia said it had withdrawn 30,000 troops across the Dnipro River without losing a single soldier. But Ukrainians painted a picture of a chaotic retreat, with Russian troops ditching their uniforms, dropping weapons and drowning while trying to flee.

The withdrawal marked the third major Russian retreat of the war and the first to involve yielding such a large occupied city in the face of a major Ukrainian counter-offensive that has retaken parts of the east and south.

Video footage verified by Reuters showed dozens of people cheering and chanting victory slogans in Kherson city's central square, where the apparent first Ukrainian troops to arrive snapped selfies in the throng.

Two men hoisted a female soldier on their shoulders and tossed her into the air. Some residents wrapped themselves in Ukrainian flags. One man was weeping with joy.

Also be sure to check #Kerson and /r/ukraine (sort by Top-24hrs) for more footage of the crowds in Kherson and all the surrounding villages welcoming the Ukranian soldiers and celebrating with them. This one and this one are especially worth watching IMO, made me ugly cry, both in sorrow and joy, but also did my heart a lot of good. Hopefully this is truly the beginning of the end of this war. 🤞

Fuck Russia. Fuck Putin. Slava Ukraini.

Russia to introduce return of Soviet-era military training for teens
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-722136

Russia announced that compulsory military training, the same as during the Soviet era, will be introduced in Russia's high school curriculums starting in 2023, Russian Education Minister Sergey Kravtsov said on Wednesday, according to TASS.

Russian schools have already added the invasion of Ukraine to the 10th and 11th graders’ history curriculum starting this academic year.

Younger students are also required to attend weekly patriotic classes called “Important Conversations.” Parents, teachers and lawyers expressed concern over what they criticize as state efforts to rally support for the war among children, according to The Moscow Times.

Russia is also planning to overhaul humanities education with an ideological course on the “fundamentals and principles of Russian statehood” in universities by March 2023, according to a report published by Kommersant.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 13
(ISW)

Ukraine’s success resulted in large part from the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ (UAF’s) innovative use of the US-provided HIMARS precision rocket system to disrupt Russian supply lines. The HIMARS munitions the US has given Ukraine are not suitable for destroying bridges—their warheads are too small and are not optimized for such strikes. The UAF developed a tactic to work around that limitation by conducting multiple precision strikes across the key Antonivskiy Bridge and the road that ran atop the Kakhovka Dam in such a way as to break the roadways in a line across them, rendering them unusable without actually destroying the bridges’ infrastructure (or badly damaging the dam).[5] The UAF continued to strike the bridges as the Russians sought to repair them, targeting the repair equipment as well as the roadways until the Russians finally gave up. The Russians attempted to construct a pontoon bridge under the Antonivskiy Bridge as a mitigation, but the UAF attacked that effort as well, causing the Russians to abandon it.[6] The Russians were left at the end with barges ferrying supplies, equipment, and reinforcements from the east to the west bank.[7] The UAF attacked the barges and landing areas as well, but the ferry system was in any case insufficient to supply the 20,000-some Russian mechanized troops trying to hold their lodgment on the western bank of the river.[8]

It was clear that the Russians would be unable to defend that lodgment by the time Russian Army General Sergey Surovikin took command of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on October 8.[9] Surovikin signaled his intention to withdraw from western Kherson almost immediately and likely began setting conditions to retreat within a couple of weeks.

[...]

Russian offensive operations in Donetsk Oblast will intensify in the coming weeks as additional mobilized servicemen arrive along with forces withdrawn from western Kherson. Ukrainian forces in the area will find themselves hard-pressed, and Kyiv will very likely have to divert troops to defend against these renewed Russian offensives [...]

[...]

The UAF is therefore more likely to consolidate its control of the western bank, leave enough force to deter any Russian attempt to cross the river again, and reallocate forces to other areas. The Russian offensive in Donetsk Oblast will likely require the UAF to divert some forces to defend in that area, but the UAF will likely send at least part of the recouped combat power either to reinforce its ongoing counter-offensive in Luhansk Oblast or to open another counter-offensive somewhere else (we will not speculate about where that might be).

The Russian withdrawal from Kherson may be deteriorating rapidly.