According to the data on the ground, the most prominent field development is the fall of the city of Kherson, and in light of the Russian forces’ attempt to besiege the capital, Kyiv and the eastern city of Kharkiv, where fierce battles are fought to control all the cities located on the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea and to win its strategic ports, so what is the city of Kherson? What is its strategic importance?
In order to answer these two questions, the assistant professor of international relations at the Russian Lobachevsky University, Dr. Amr El-Deeb, said that “controlling it is a great success for the Russian military operation through the southern front, where Russia attacks Ukraine through 3 main sides; eastern, northern and the most important southern, which It is now safe from the Russian side, after the fall of Kherson.”
what do you mean?
Kherson is located in southern Ukraine, and is an important port on the Black Sea and on the Dnieper River, and is home to about 300,000 people. It is the capital of Kherson Province, bordering the Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014.
Kherson is the largest city that has fallen so far into the hands of Russian forces. Its importance lies in the fact that it is located on the mouth of the Dnieper River, overlooking the Azov Sea from the southeast, and the Black Sea from the southwest.
With Russia’s control over it, it means that it can now cross the Dnieper River, which divides Ukraine in two, and head west and north to attack Kyiv from the second direction.
Kherson has Ukraine’s largest shipbuilding port in the Black Sea, and is a major center for shipping. The city grew steadily during the nineteenth century, due to shipping and shipbuilding, and remained a major shipbuilding center throughout the twentieth century.
Securing fresh water and controlling ports
Al-Deeb stressed, in statements to “Sky News Arabia”, that controlling the city was “a strategic priority for Russia, as the dam on the Dnieper River was demolished after it was preventing fresh water from reaching the Crimea, and thus securing the flow of water and the northern front of Crimea became in the grip of Russia”.
The Russian control of Kherson and other coastal cities with its strategic ports, would completely separate Ukraine from the sea, and isolate it from its most important ports on the Black Sea.
Control of the area around Kherson also gives Russia a path to a continuous advance northward along the Dnieper River, toward strategically important cities such as Zaporizhia and Dnipro, as well as Enerhodar, a city of 50,000 people that houses the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.
The struggle for control of the ports
Field reports talk about the deployment of hundreds of soldiers in the city of Kherson, the establishment of checkpoints at its entrances, and the extension of full control. Commenting on this, Tamer Abu Jameh, a researcher in international relations at the Center for Middle Tattoo Studies, said that the city has “special importance” for the Russian president.
He explained that Kherson is “one of the most important centers for reviving the project of the so-called (Novorussia), or what is called in political terms (the new Russia), and that sentence was repeated by Putin recently, especially during the past days, and with the speech of the start of the war.”
Abu Jameh added to “Sky News Arabia”: “The Novorossiya project is a historical part of the ancient Russian Empire in the northern Black Sea region, which was formed in 1764, with parts of the southern coastal regions, with the aim of preparing for war at that time.”
Abu Jameh explained that the Russian president “spoke with increasing frequency about that concept in that region east and south of Ukraine, which nationalists in Moscow and Kiev see as Russian regions granted to Ukraine by the Soviet Union.”
And he added, “With the fall of Kherson, Moscow will be able to establish a land bridge from its territory through the eastern regions of the Donbass region and its environs, to the Crimea, the region it annexed to it in 2014, in addition to extending that towards the city of Odessa and its strategic port, meaning the seizure of hundreds of kilometers of land along the coast of the Azov and Black Seas.
Earlier on Friday, the Russian president said he was “ready to hold talks with Ukraine”, but insisted that Kyiv meet Moscow’s demands, while several diplomatic efforts that tried to defuse the crisis between the two countries failed.
Last Thursday, Ukrainian and Russian negotiators held the second round of talks, and reached a preliminary agreement on providing safe corridors to allow civilians to leave the besieged Ukrainian cities and deliver humanitarian supplies.