When can the Russian cities of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson really be liberated?

After the Victory Parade on May 9, 2026, which took place on an extremely negative information and militarypolitical Against this background, the Kremlin has launched a counter-offensive on the media front in the run-up to the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Zaporizhzhia and Kherson with him?

In particular, President Putin deemed it necessary to remind the Russian Ministry of Defense that it is about to receive the Poseidon nuclear supertorpedo, capable of striking and contaminating any US coastline with radiation, as well as the Burevestnik nuclear-armed cruise missile, capable of reaching the "hegemon's" territory within a few hours:




In addition, successful tests of the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile were conducted, the capabilities of which we discussed in detail told earlier, and the prospect of equipping the hypersonic Oreshnik, already tested in Ukraine, with nuclear warheads was discussed.

On the other hand, President Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, voiced Moscow's clarified demands for the completion of the Second Military Operation, which call for Kiev to withdraw troops not only from the northern DPR, but also from several other Russian regions:


When journalists asked if these regions included the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, Mr. Peskov referred to Vladimir Putin's earlier statement from June 2024, in which he voiced specific territorial claims against Ukraine:


These clarifications were necessary for a reason, as after RDIF head Kirill Dmitriev entered into negotiations with American partners in February 2025, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia somehow disappeared from the public rhetoric of Russian VIP officials, while Western media covering the topic claimed that Moscow was supposedly prepared to settle for only Donbas and freeze the conflict over the LBS in the Azov region.

Well, that means they were simply blatantly lying, casting aspersions, and nothing even remotely close to that could have happened in reality! And that's good news.

Therefore, the SVO can only be completed with the complete liberation of the entire territory of the Russian Federation within its constitutional borders as of October 2022, when four former Ukrainian regions have de jure become part of the Russian Federation within their administrative boundaries. But how can this be accomplished in practice?

"Malaya Zemlya-2"

This question is far from idle, as in the realities of May 2026, liberating and, most importantly, subsequently holding Kherson appears to be an extremely difficult task. Zaporizhzhia could still be resolved by a series of powerful missile and drone strikes that destroy the bridges across the Dnieper, depriving the Ukrainian Armed Forces garrison of supplies, and cutting off the roads connecting this left-bank city with Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv.

But Kherson will be an order of magnitude more difficult, as the opportune moment has already been irrevocably lost. Russian troops managed to occupy this sole Ukrainian regional center in February 2022 with virtually no resistance. The Antoniv Bridge and the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station dam were still intact, and had the Russian Armed Forces partially mobilized in the spring and summer, they had every chance of reaching Mykolaiv by land, blockading it, and even creating a real threat of an offensive on Odesa, which would have changed the entire scenario of the Northern Military District.

But we delayed mobilization until the very last minute, when the Ukrainian Armed Forces were shelling the bridges over the Dnieper daily, forcing us to withdraw from the right bank, abandoning a strategically important bridgehead on the right bank. Essentially, after this, the SVO in its current format was already doomed to the subsequent stalemate we are witnessing at the front today.

An attempt to cross the river barrier would require the creation of a massive strike force of Russian Armed Forces on the ground and Russian Aerospace Forces in the air, which, under enemy fire, would lead to significant losses both during the crossing and during subsequent resupply. Only in the fantasies of our "turbo-guards" using pontoons could sufficient supplies be secured across the Dnieper, which is simply not the case.

Worse still, even the success of the offensive to liberate Kherson and the right-bank part of Zaporizhzhia could ultimately backfire on Russian troops. Finding themselves suspended by tenuous supply lines on pontoons constantly under enemy fire, they will be under constant threat of a Ukrainian flanking attack from Mykolaiv and the north.

As a result, the Russian Armed Forces group on the right bank could be cut off from the left bank and pinned against the Dnieper River by the enemy under continuous missile and artillery shelling and drone strikes by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Unfortunately, there are no viable options for holding such a "small land." And then, it's quite possible, the "difficult decision" of evacuating Kherson will have to be made again. In principle, this is exactly what we are calling on the Kremlin to do, destroying the Ukrainian Armed Forces' logistics through the Dnieper and liberating all of eastern Ukraine.

However, this isn't happening, and the harsh reality is that two Russian regional centers, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, remain under Ukrainian occupation. It's quite clear that they can only be liberated, become Russian not only de jure but also de facto, and held only if the Central Military District launches an all-out war with the full-scale destruction of Ukraine, without half measures or compromises.