The Wall Street Journal published a detailed analytical article about how Ukraineʼs victory in the right-bank part of the Kherson region changed the entire dynamics of events at the war. Many of its theses are already well known to Ukrainians: the fact that Ukrainian HIMARS are already finishing the Perekop Isthmus in Crimea; and the fact that part of the freed troops from both the Ukrainian and Russian sides went to Donbas, since that is where Putin concentrated the greatest efforts to capture new territories; and the fact that the next offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces may take place in the Zaporizhzhia region. However, there are also several relatively new theses. The first is by the military adviser of the Ukrainians, the British colonel Glen Grant, who is convinced that if even a small contingent of the Ukrainian Armed Forces lands in the left-bank Kherson region, the occupying forces will withdraw further to the south and east. The second is that Ukrainian attacks on the Kinburn spit are carried out in order to secure commercial shipping (apparently, in the area of the Dnipro-Buh and Berezan estuaries). The third new thesis is the fresh statements of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States, Mark Milley. Just two weeks ago, he said that now is a good opportunity for Ukraine to sit down at the negotiating table and seek a compromise with Russia ― and this statement caused a stormy reaction both in Ukraine and in the United States. Now Milley says something a little different. "I think the Ukrainians should continue to put pressure on the Russians as much as they can. It is obvious that the will to fight in the Russians is in no way comparable to that of the Ukrainians," WSJ quotes him. Milley also highly praised the struggle of the Ukrainians near Bakhmut: thanks to skillful tactics, they successfully restrained the advance of numerous Russian troops there. The fourth thesis of the article concerns Crimea: the publication notes that the peninsula may well become the next main goal of the Ukrainians. The main arguments in favor of this are the logistical problems of Crimea, especially after the damage to the Crimean bridge, as well as the fact that there is no powerful Russian military contingent on the peninsula. Having thrown its main forces into capturing (and now keeping) the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, as well as Donbas, Russia left in Crimea mainly conscripts ― in fact, it is now the worst-protected region by the Russians of all the regions they captured. And it is possible to knock them out of the peninsula, as the publications of the British Royal United Services Institute assure, in the same way that the Armed Forces of Ukraine did it in the right-bank Kherson region ― by destroying the logistics and military bases of the Russians. Will the US oppose this? Officially, the WSJ article concludes, the Americans recognize Ukraine in its 1991 borders and assure that only Kyiv will decide what the next goal in the war will be.
Politicoʼs report from the security forum, which ended in Halifax, Canada, is full of numerous assurances of Ukraineʼs support, including weapons. "The way to protect world democracy right now lies through weapons and support of Ukraine in the war with Russia, not through talks," ― this statement, which can be used to sum up the meeting of influential world politicians in Canada, begins the article. The US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also spoke about the proper provision of weapons, who stated that the outcome of the war in Ukraine will determine the direction of the development of the security situation in the world in this century, and, for example, the head of the Ministry of Defense of the Netherlands, Kajsa Ollongen, who assured that "in this war Ukrainians are fighting, but this is also our war, because it will have a clear impact on our future." A representative of the US Congress assured that support for Ukraine will continue to be bipartisan, Polish Defense Minister Raimund Andrejczak mentioned that "if we lose in Ukraine, we will also lose Belarus... And we will also not be ready for "mission number two", which is China." Politico notes that the theses that sounded at this yearʼs event were significantly different from the words at the forum in Halifax a year ago. At the time, the world was reeling from the abrupt and failed collapse of the US mission in Afghanistan and was awash with alarmist statements about Chinaʼs growing aggressiveness. Now all the conversations were about action and Ukraine. Moreover, Kyivʼs allies are increasingly talking not only about armed support, but also about money for the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine ― so that the country can recover exemplarily quickly after the Russian invasion.
The American public broadcaster NPR published a large and carefully illustrated story about how Russia hopes to weaken the will of Ukrainians to resist thanks to the cold winter, and Ukraine prepares for new challenges. The article describes the situation using the example of Izyum, where the inhabitants, in an attempt to keep warm, cover the broken windows with what they can and put on several warm sweaters and pants. Local old women cover themselves with blankets included in humanitarian aid sets and try to adjust to regular power outages in order to cook. What will they do if the electricity goes out completely? "Probably, I will burn books [from the home library]," answered stubbornly one of journalistsʼ interlocutors. Ukrainian energy engineers are trying to repair power distribution facilities damaged by Russian shelling as soon as possible, but they admit that if the shelling continues, the blackout may be complete in some regions. However, Ukraine has a plan for such a case, the article says. The state ensured organized felling of the forest to send firewood to the regions of Ukraine with the highest risk of electricity and heating blackouts. First of all, this refers to the recently liberated territories: there, due to military actions or deliberate sabotage by the Russians, the ability to supply electricity and heat the premises is significantly limited. That is why, for example, firewood goes from Zhytomyr region to Kharkiv region and Kherson region. This issue is dealt with not only by the authorities, but also by volunteers. In particular, NPR talks about a man from Izyum who was a writer before the war, and now organizes local people to cut down trees for the townspeople in the nearby forests. Often these forests are full of used and unexploded shells. However, this does not stop loggers. "Itʼs scarier to die from the cold," one of them assured the journalists.