[Bruce Campbells Chin]

Normally, you wouldn't expect this much public discussion to preserve secrecy, but there's really nothing secret about this anyway. The Kherson salient across the Dnieper is just screaming to be the focus of a Ukrainian counterattack. And of course, the attacks on the bridges and attempt to isolate the area logistically are something of which the Russians are aware of anyway because they're on the receiving end.

From the "pro-Russian" perspective, you could spin this as setting things up for a ceasefire/peace settlement. The Ukrainian recovery of that territory enables them to claim enough success to negotiate a settlement over other territories. I'm not at all convinced that's Ukraine's intention, but Russia could easily afford to lose the territory north/west of the Dnieper if that was the price for keeping everything else.

[PIF]

The Ukraine government could negotiate anything - but the people will stand for nothing less then the whole of Ukraine.