Is Russia preparing to surrender Kherson?

Will they stay or will they go? The southern Ukrainian city of Kherson has become the current focus of the toughest fighting in the war, and what was once seen as Moscow’s potential gateway to Odessa and the rest of the Black Sea coast is now looking like Kyiv’s access towards occupied Crimea. However, it is unclear whether the Russians are finally preparing to withdraw from the city.

On the one hand, Russia’s generals have reportedly been petitioning the Kremlin for weeks to be allowed to fall back. As it stands, Kherson is almost impossible for them to defend. It is on the western bank of the Dnipro River, and with the Antonivsky Bridge and the Kherson Rail Bridge heavily damaged, reinforcing and resupplying it is proving difficult and dangerous.

The Ukrainians, mindful of just how dangerous street-to-street fighting can be, and that the Russians troops dug in could prove hard to dislodge, have largely been contenting themselves with probing attacks, seizing nearby settlements, and relying on accurate long-range bombardment, especially of those supply lines.