While the outcome is still far from certain, the Ukrainian counteroffensive to retake the southern city of Kherson is becoming the major strategic contest of the war going into the winter months.

The Ukrainians are attacking, and so far the Russians are holding them off.

One of the reasons the Kherson region is strategically important is the Kakhovka dam, just north of the city on the Dnipro River. The dam also supports a canal which provides water to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia had previously annexed in 2014.

A Russian-installed official in the region, Vladimir Leontyev, said on Thursday that Ukrainian forces had launched five missile strikes against the Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power station about 70 kilometres from Kherson city. 

He said on Russian TV that if the facilities were destroyed, a critical canal providing water to annexed Crimea would be cut off.

Zelenskyy countered that the Russians had mined the dam and power station, with plans to blow them up in what he called a terrorism act to unleash 18 million cubic metres and flood Kherson and dozens of areas where hundreds of thousands of people live. He told the European Council Russia would then blame Ukraine.

For his part, the Russian commander in the region, General Sergei Surovikin continues his less than optimistic appraisal of the situation, describing the situation on the Kherson front as “tense”. The UK Defense Minister rather optimistically is interpreting Surovikin’s words to mean Russia is considering retreating from Kherson back across the Dnipro River.

While that would be a substantial victory for Ukraine, one should not look too quickly for that to happen. Retreating from Kherson would surrender the biggest city taken by the Russians at the outset of the war, and without Kherson, Russia’s ability to hold a “land bridge” in eastern Ukraine to connect Russia proper to the Crimea becomes tenuous.

Kherson may yet be retaken by Ukrainian forces, but it is still likely to be a lengthy and bloody battle.