Blow Up Russian Trains, Liberate The Coast: Ukraine Has A Plan To Win The War

Repairs to the Kerch Bridge will take nine months after Ukrainian forces blew it up on October 7.

Repairs to the $4 billion, 11 mile span were ordered by the Kremlin. Until then, the only overland supply route for Russian forces in southern Ukraine will be a rail line through eastern Ukraine.

The Russian field armies in and around the port of Kherson are in trouble. Before the Ukrainians blew up the Kerch Bridge, they were struggling to get their supplies. The struggle will get more difficult.

Mick Ryan is a retired Australian army general.

According to some analysts, that sets the conditions for the end of the war. There are gaps in the defensive lines stretching from just north of Kherson to the area between Mariupol and Zaporizhzhia.

Mike Martin is a fellow at the Department of War Studies at King's College in London.

After that, there will be a collapse of the Russian armed forces, a change of power in Moscow, and a deal that will involve the handover of the peninsula of Crimea. The Ukrainians will accept it.

Most of the Russian army's supplies are moved by trains. That's why the army never had the big, robust truck units. The Russian truck shortage got worse this spring when the Ukrainians blew up hundreds of trucks trying to deliver supplies to the Russians.

The only other rail line that connects Russia to a railhead anywhere near Kherson is located just a few miles south of the front line near Volnova. Ukrainian troops could hit the line with 120-millimeter mortars and 155-millimeter howitzers.

Russian commanders don't have a lot of options. They can feed small quantities of supplies into Kherson by truck, by boat and by plane, and hope that the garrison in the south will be able to hold out until July.

Russian commanders know they have nine months to take advantage of the problem. Nine months is how long it will take to add a third counteroffensive. Mariupol is likely to be targeted in order to cut in two the Russian army and starve half of them.

The Russians are on the defensive and the Kremlin is feeding old men into a war they are not equipped to fight. They have the option of launching a third counteroffensive. Russian sources are ready for the attack.

The coming winter may be the only time terms can be dictated. The first few months ofUkraine's winter are muddy. The last few are not warm. They are hostile to ground fighting. Less so is the latter. It might be necessary for Kyiv to end the war soon if it wants to do so before January.