The American publication The Washingtong Post told the details of how the offensives of the Ukrainian army in Kharkiv region and Kherson region were planned and carried out. To do this, journalists spoke with more than 35 military and politicians in Ukraine, Europe and the USA.
This is stated in the article on the website of the newspaper.
Kharkiv region
The operation in the Kharkiv region was led by the commander of the Ground Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi. He considered this direction promising since the spring. The goal of the offensive was to quickly cut off Russian groups in Izyum and Belgorod region.
The planning of the operation began after the military received an order to prepare possible diversions to distract the Russians from Kherson. With the help of Western partners, Ukraine established that the Russians had to greatly reduce their Izyum group because they were transferring troops to the Kherson region. Later, Ukraine and the United States came to cooperate in real time — the Ukrainians say what targets they are looking for, and the Americans use intelligence to transmit the exact coordinates.
Syrskyi said that the speed of the breakthrough was an important element of the operation. If the Russians had introduced reserves from Izyum and the Belgorod region, they could have surrounded the Ukrainian troops. At the end of August, Syrskyi together with commanders and advisers held a meeting, for which they prepared a huge 3D map of the occupied Kharkiv region. It virtually walked each unit through the path they were supposed to take, discussing coordination, contingencies, and possible worst-case scenarios.
Before the start of the offensive, Ukrainian troops transferred M777 artillery installations and M270 multiple rocket launchers to Kharkiv region, from which they simultaneously opened fire on Russian warehouses and command posts. At the same time, the Ukrainians felt a lack of ammunition, so they used it cautiously. Before the offensive, the Russians began to guess that Ukraine was planning something, but they could not inform the higher command about it in time and prepare because of the bureaucracy.
The Ukrainian military also overturned pontoon bridges near Izyum in order to deceive the Russians about an alleged plan to attack this city.
The defense forces of Ukraine broke through the front in Kharkiv region in many places at once, and the Russians were forced to flee. When the Ukrainians entered Izyum, they saw that the Russians had a huge amount of weapons and ammunition to fight back — but they decided to flee. Next, the Ukrainian military moved to Donetsk region and eventually managed to surround and liberate the city of Lyman. However, in the Donetsk region, the Russians were already on the defensive and fired at the Ukrainians with all available weapons.
Due to the events in Kharkiv region, Putin dared to mobilize in Russia, and also appointed a single commander of all occupation forces — General Surovikin. He began to receive more objective information about events at the front directly from him.
Kherson region
The operation in Kherson region was commanded by the Commander of the Operational Command "South" Major General Andriy Kovalchuk. He said that the main goal was to cut off the group of Russians on the right bank of the Dnipro River and destroy as many forces as possible. Or force them to retreat to the other shore.
The Ukrainian army planned a much larger offensive in the south of Ukraine, in particular in Zaporizhzhia region, in order to reach Crimea and cut the "land corridor" from Russia to the peninsula. But in the USA and Great Britain, various simulations were conducted and all of them showed that there would not be enough forces for such an operation. In the end, Ukraine decided to concentrate on Kherson.
The advance of the Ukrainians was complicated by the fact that the Russians had created a huge number of mine barriers there, built trenches and hid in irrigation canals. Ukrainian troops methodically beat the bridges across the Dnipro River to leave the Russians without support. However, they managed to create other crossings. Then the Ukrainian command thought about flooding the river. They even conducted test strikes on the Kakhovska HPP dam, which turned out to be successful. The Ukrainian army planned to flood the Russian crossings, but not to affect the settlements along the river. This plan was considered as a last resort and was never implemented.
When the Ukrainian military broke through the first line of defense of the Russians, they ran into a stiff resistance on the second line. The occupiers began to use aerial bombs en masse, due to which the losses of Ukrainians increased.
Kovalchuk was convinced that the retreat of the Russians was only a matter of time and that they would flee closer to winter. But in Kyiv, they were dissatisfied with the slow pace and replaced him with Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi. Tarnavskyi planned a breakthrough to the outskirts of Kherson so that Ukrainian artillery would begin to reach Russian crossings across the Dnipro. However, there were Russian airborne units on their way.
On the night of November 9, Ukrainian troops went to the village of Zeleny Hai in Kherson region and began shelling Russian crossings near Kherson. But the Russians have already begun to retreat to the left bank. It was very difficult for Ukrainian troops to catch up with the occupiers due to massive minefields.