1 Institute for the Study of War & The Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 13
Frederick W. Kagan
November 13, 3:30 pm ET
Click here to see ISW’s interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is
updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.
ISW is publishing an abbreviated campaign update today, November 13. This report
discusses the likely evolution of the war following Ukraine’s operational success in
regaining control of western Kherson Oblast. The Russians are not setting conditions for
a relaxation of hostilities for the rest of the fall and into the winter but rather are
launching a new offensive in Donetsk Oblast. The Ukrainians will likely use combat
power recouped from the liberation of western Kherson to reinforce their ongoing
counter-offensive in Luhansk Oblast or to open a new counter-offensive drive elsewhere.
This is not the time to slow down aid or press for ceasefires or negotiations, but rather
the time to help Ukraine take advantage of its momentum in conditions that favor Kyiv
rather than Moscow.
Ukraine has won an important victory in the campaign that liberated western Kherson
Oblast, culminating in the withdrawal of Russian forces completed on November 11.
1
Russian President Vladimir Putin had been determined to hold this key terrain, possession of which
would have allowed him to renew his invasion of unoccupied Ukraine from positions on the west bank
of the Dnipro River. That consideration was likely more important in Putin‘s calculations than the
symbolic value of retaining the only oblast capital his forces had seized since February 24, 2022. (Russia
had already taken Luhansk City and Donetsk City in its 2014-2015 invasion.) Putin had committed
substantial Russian forces to the defense of western Kherson, including many of the remaining elite
airborne units available to the Russian military.
2
He also committed reinforcements generated by the
partial mobilization of reservists he had ordered on September 21.
3
Those forces had dug in and fought
hard to hold their ground, taking many losses. Ukraine’s success despite this Russian determination
and allocation of scarce elite units is in many respects even more impressive than its victory in Kharkiv
Oblast in mid-September.
4
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
