Before this week most Americans had probably never heard of Kherson. I hadn't until we visited the city just before the invasion started. But it's a strategic city for more reasons than that it is the largest urban region taken so far by the Russians.

When I visited Kherson two weeks ago on a press tour, Ukrainian troops, police and emergency services were holding joint training exercises to counter those being held by Russia in Belarus and elsewhere. Ukraine's training was centered around defending a seemingly nondescript waterway which sat empty by the side of a road outside of town. Why was this waterway important? Public affairs officers explained: This waterway provided water to Crimea. When Russian-backed seperatists took that area in 2014, Ukraine responded by shutting off the canal that supplied 85% of the region's water. So there.

Kherson is just the beginning, however. Russia's end goal is to take the whole country. Whether they can take it, and then hold it, however, remains to be seen.