Indeed, they took back Kherson but, once again, failed to achieve the encirclement of Russian forces. If Kherson was being besieged in September, when I posted that, explain the lack of any major encirclements of Russian troops? Likewise, Surovikin's announcement of tough decisions preceded the official start of the Ukrainian offensive on Kherson in late October/early November by almost two weeks. The decision to abandon the city had been made in advance of any military realities on the ground.
19fortyfive explains why this was the case well:
As part of Putin’s response to the deteriorating situation in his Ukrainian war effort, he announced a mobilization of 300,000 reservists in September. Despite
significant difficulties and shortcomings by the Russian state in conducting the effort – and reportedly up to
700,000 Russian men fleeing the border to avoid serving – there are now more than 200,000 new troops (82,000 of the 300,000 mobilized reservists have
already been deployed to Ukraine) preparing for a winter offensive that could completely change the nature of this war.
By surrendering Kherson city without a fight and blowing the bridges over the Dnipro, Surovikin has preserved 30,000 of his best-trained and experienced troops for use in the coming offensive, sealed off the southern front from a risk of a Ukrainian flanking action and will soon have a massive new force to employ (I will publish a separate analysis next week looking at potential objectives of this offensive).
Once this force is ready to launch Putin’s winter offensive (likely in late December/early January when the ground has sufficiently frozen), it will likely be preceded by a massive new attack on the Ukrainian
energy infrastructure to plunge the country into darkness, cripple the remainder of its electrified rail system, and significantly hamper the government’s ability to supply its troops with basic needs, complicate their ability to move troops around the battlefield, and most critically, degrade their ability to communicate with troops in the field.
Further evidence of this: