Reports of Russian forces regrouping in Kherson Oblast may be Russian information operation – ISW

The Russian military command might have ordered the Russian state-run media to issue and then retract reports of Russian forces regrouping in Kherson Oblast as part of an information operation. Its purpose has been to make the Ukrainian forces underestimate the available Russian military personnel on the left bank of Kherson Oblast.

Source: Institute for the Study of War (ISW)

Details: In addition, the retracted reports on Russian troops regrouping on the left bank of Kherson Oblast may indicate real ongoing discussions in the highest ranks of the Russian military command. They may have been prematurely revealed in the information space.

Another guess of military analysts is that an external source, under the guise of the Russian Defence Ministry, passed information on the "regrouping" of Russian troops on the left bank part of Kherson Oblast to Russian state-run media.

ISW analysts believe that regardless of the reasons and circumstances of the Kremlin-aligned news agencies TASS and RIA Novosti reports, the reaction they received suggests that the events in Kherson Oblast remain highly sensitive in the Russian information space.

ISW also stressed that the Russian media space has not yet coalesced around a unified rhetoric about what is happening on the left bank of Kherson Oblast.

Background: On the morning of 13 November, Russia's leading propaganda outlets broadcast the report that the Russian command had decided to regroup their troops and move them to "more favourable" positions. After a while, they officially retracted the piece, and the Russian Defence Ministry labelled the news as a "provocation".

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