Is Russia Really Retreating?

 Mainstream media would lean "yes," but Patrick Lawrence from scheerpost doesn't think so:

Straight off the top, it would be incautious to conclude that Russia’s pullback across the Dnieper represents a dramatic turn in the course of the Ukraine conflict. We heard this kind of thing last summer, when the Armed forces of Ukraine made swift territorial advances in northeastern Ukraine. The AFU is beating back the Russians, we read. Victory is suddenly within the Kyiv regime’s grasp. Only gradually did it emerge that Russian forces had abandoned the northeast and the AFU had shadow-boxed an enemy who was no longer there.

No one seems to be trying this one on in the Kherson case, which is wise. There was no “Battle of Kherson,” no Stalingrad revisited, as Ukrainian propagandists have put it about in recent weeks. As of Friday morning there were no Russian troops left in Kherson, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, and none in the surrounding region on the river’s west bank.

I don’t see any caviar-eating surrender monkeys here. This looks like a tactical retreat ordered by people who study maps, not newspaper headlines. Based on what we know, it is likely to have little impact on the long-term course of the war. In my reckoning, the odds are no more in Kyiv’s favor now than they were a week back.

Let there be no question: The Kherson withdrawal is a far bigger deal for Russia than the events to the north last summer. Russian forces took Kherson early in the war because it was key to advancing elsewhere, notably to Odessa, the historic, significant Black Sea port. Kherson is a big shipbuilding center and was founded in the 1770s by Grigory Potemkin, Catherine the Great’s lover and empire builder. So, practical value and cultural and historical significance all at once.

Americans need to remember that not every country makes military decisions for the sake of propaganda and public perception.