Ukraine will soon cutoff Russian troops in Kherson on the Northern side of the Dnipro River from resupply. They are destroying bridges and have already rendered certain bridges mostly unusable.
This will enable Ukraine’s larger number of troops to outnumber and overwhelm Russian troops without resupply.
This retaking of significant territory currently held by Russian troops would be significant. Ukraine lost part of the Donbas area on the other side of the country.
Controlling Kherson would enable to Ukraine to cutoff water to Crimea.
Denys Davydov provides the report. He also reports on overall artillery strikes.
Key targets
There are three key objectives Ukraine has to meet in order to encircle Russian troops and force them to surrender in Kherson.
Ukraine would have to impose firm control over the M14/P47 highway that runs east of Kherson and connects the city with Nova Kakhovka, one of Russia’s key bases in Ukraine’s southern Kherson Oblast and the site of recent attacks on Russian ammunition depots carried out with the help of newly delivered Western weapons.
It would also need to destroy two bridges across the Dnipro River, the Antonivsky Bridges, one for vehicle traffic and the other for railway, close to the town of Antonivka on the outskirts of Kherson. The two bridges currently allow Russia to reinforce its garrison in Kherson from occupied territory across the river.
Ukraine would also have to cut off the Kakhovska Hydroelectric Power Plant in Nova Kakhovka some 55 kilometers east of Kherson. The dam also serves as a bridge, along which the M14/P47 highway runs.
If the highway is cut off by Ukraine, Russian forces would have no way of getting across the Dnipro. With the two Antonivksy bridges destroyed, the only other way to make it across the Dnipro’s right bank is in Ukrainian-controlled Zaporizhzhia over 200 kilometers away from Kherson.
This first phase would only be considered successful once Russian forces are blocked and cut off from supplies and reinforcements.
If successful, Russian forces in Kherson would be backed up against a giant natural obstacle. The Dnipro River is nearly 350 meters wide near the city. Ukrainian artillery would also be close enough to prevent Russian forces from installing any sort of river cross, such as floating bridges.
This prediction that Russians will lose Kherson north of the Dnipro over the next 1-3 months is highly likely. The prediction is based upon how logistics and balance of forces that we already know about will play out.
Nextbigfuture and Brian Wang Make Predictions With a Public Track Record of High Accuracy
I report news and make predictions. This is not a change. I supply data with the predictions. Also, mainstream reporting also make frequent predictions. There were some pro-Democrat radio hosts who predicted that Russia would crush Ukraine quickly before the war started (because they are Russia was the reasoning.) They also drummed up the WW3 scenario. https://www.kgoradio.com/2022/03/11/are-we-on-the-cusp-of-world-war-iii/
This was clearly idiotic and the analysis of somehow who did not understand Russia’s real military capabilities. but going off of WW2 reputation and misunderstanding the nuclear weapon situation.
Plenty of other news reporters on regular media make predictions. They have very poor track records. Also, supposed experts make predictions and they are often wrong. Nobel Prize winning economist and NY Times columnist, Paul Krugman, has been notoriously bad at predicting. He was recently wrong about inflation and the economy under Biden. He was wrong about the stock market.
I have been writing it for 17 years. I am a futurist. I make predictions. This involves being totally current with everything important that is happening now and understanding relevant history. Knowing quite a bit about the relevant topic of military factors (weapons, armies, losses etc…). Looking through the fog of war.
I have made hundreds of public predictions and tracked the results.
On the public futurist prediction website Metaculus and on either sites and articles.
Over the last 3 years, 254 Metaculus prediction questions have resolved that I made predictions.
Total questions: 254 Average score: 0.113
Lower average Brier score is better.
https://www.metaculus.com/accounts/profile/110947/
I rank 66th out of many thousands of participants in terms of prediction results.
I started in 2019. There are some other with more points because of longer participation.
I participated in the IARPA Good Judgement project. In 2011, IARPA – the US intelligence community’s equivalent to DARPA – launched a massive competition to identify cutting-edge methods to forecast geopolitical events. Four years, 500 questions, and over a million forecasts later, the Good Judgment Project (GJP) – led by Philip Tetlock and Barbara Mellers at the University of Pennsylvania – emerged as the undisputed victor in the tournament. GJP’s forecasts were so accurate that they even outperformed intelligence analysts with access to classified data. At the time of the Good Judgement project, I was close to being ranked as a Superpredictor. However, there were some poorly worded questions with bad resolution criteria.
Per the public data and track record, I am a very good predictor with about 80% accuracy.
Earlier, it was clear that Russia was failing in its initial push for Kyiv. It was clear for months that many cities would fail to be taken. It became apparent after the russians focused on the Donbas exclusively and used artillery primarily that they would take those cities. Predictions I made were consistent with those results weeks and months before they happened.
The bridges and supply chain situation are very predictive. The earlier Russian losses had a lot to do with badly maintained trucks and inability to go into the Ukrainian mud.
Russia’s logistic problems were discussed and the insufficiency in trucks. This problem still exists.
In April, I predicted a less active war in the summer because both sides were getting short on weapons. This was a correct prediction.
In March, observed the pace of Russia military casualties and the problems this would cause. Russia has been forced to shift to a force protection campaign. They are relying on artillery.
In March, I made the prediction that Russia and Ukraine would both lose.
In March, Russia has not fixed failures seen in the first Chechnya war.
Specific Prediction
The Battle for Kyiv, Mariupol and the battle for the Donbas each took place over a couple of months. It was fairly clear that Russia was going to be able to take Mariupol and then the Donbas. It was also clear that Ukraine was stalling the Kyiv offensive and that it would culminate and fail. Knowledge and predictability of these developments were not impacted by getting some battlefield reports from sources that were spinning for propoganda purposes. Assessing the quality of war info sources needs to factor in history of the source on prior developments in the war.
The culminating point in military strategy is the point at which a military force is no longer able to perform its operations. On the offensive, the culminating point marks the time when the attacking force can no longer continue its advance, because of supply problems, the opposing force, or the need for rest. The task of the attacker is to complete its objectives before the culminating point is reached. The task of the defender on the other hand, is to bring the attacking force to its culminating point before its objectives are completed. The concept of a culminating point (Kulminationspunkt) was formulated by the Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz in his book On War published in 1832.
Cutting off supplies to a military force and having them pinned against a physical obstacle like a river (with no bridges) means that it is a matter of time (and not much time) before those forces are defeated or withdrawn.
The prediction with 95+% certainty is that Ukraine will control Kherson west of the Dnipro by October 31, 2022. The Dnipro freezes from Late Dec to mid to late March. Getting the west of Kherson would set up Ukraine to push across the frozen Dnipro in late Dec to January after a rest in November. Russia has consolidated artillery and other forces in the Donbas. I believe the flank areas (Kherson, Kharkiv) are areas where Ukraine could advance and rollback Russia. It will take more foreign weapons and some time. I think the weapons are coming. The pace of the war is more grinding. Neither Ukraine or Russia forces are as mobile and capable as the US military.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
