It's a trap - while visibly talking about retreating from Kherson, according to Ukrainian intelligence they've actually boosted troop numbers in Kherson in the

It's a trap - while visibly talking about retreating from Kherson, according to Ukrainian intelligence they've actually boosted troop numbers in Kherson in the last 2 weeks (from ~20k to ~30k) and dug into the city very hard. They want the Ukrainians fighting to take ground around Kherson and then spend months fighting street by street (as russians have failed to do in Bakhmut) all under pre-sighted Russian artillery sitting pretty on the south side of the Dniepr. They don't want to blow the damn, they want to embroil the ukrainians in a grind like the ukrainians did to them in bakhmut, with a prize the ukrainians are unlikely to turn down.