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Annexation on paper, retreat on the ground
Summary
On 4 October 2022, Russia's upper house approved annexing four Ukrainian regions as Ukrainian forces pressed forward in Kherson Oblast.
What does an annexation mean when the front line is moving the other way? That question hung over 4 October 2022, when two very different kinds of news arrived on the same day.
In Russia, the Federation Council unanimously approved the annexation of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. The documents were then due to receive final signing by President Vladimir Putin. Two days earlier, on 2 October 2022, the Constitutional Court of Russia had said the annexation was constitutional. It cited the need to correct what it called the arbitrary decisions of the Soviet government and to prevent the claimed widespread repression of Russians in Ukraine. It was later also clarified that the borders of the annexed areas were intended to be those at the time of annexation.
A different picture in Kherson Oblast
On the ground, the picture in one of the four regions was moving against Moscow. On 4 October 2022, Ukraine's 35th Marine Brigade recaptured the village of Davydiv Brid in Beryslav Raion, Kherson Oblast, as the ground offensive continued. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry said around 3,500 citizens had been freed from Russian occupation in recent days.
The days before had brought a run of Ukrainian gains. On 2 October 2022, Ukrainian troops recaptured Khreshchenivka while advancing south in the occupied part of Kherson Oblast. Russia's 49th Combined Arms Army was reportedly withdrawing some troops from the front line to Beryslav. On 3 October 2022, Ukrainian forces advanced more than 20 kilometres along the Dnieper towards Dudchany, in what was being called a major breakthrough.
Consequences in Moscow's command
The setbacks were also visible in Russia's military leadership. On 3 October 2022, the Russian Defence Ministry dismissed Colonel General Alexander Zhuravlyov in response to a series of military defeats in Ukraine. Major General Roman Berdnikov replaced him as commander of the Western Military District.
Taken together, the reports from 2 to 4 October 2022 set a legal act against a military reality. Russia's institutions were formalising a claim over Kherson Oblast and three other regions, while Ukrainian units were retaking villages in one of them and Russian troops were reportedly being pulled back from parts of the front line. The gap between the two was the story of that day.
