We all know that the winter offensive is coming, but where is the question. While there are multiple points that could see a major breakthrough, right now there is no real indication that there is a specific salient that we should be focusing on yet.
We are seeing a slow grind on most of fronts in the east, with the most tangible developments happening around Salvatore. Outside of a thrust towards Melitopol, that is the most likely place to see a major offensive.
If we move west, with Kherson already being held, we are now stuck with the idea of static defenses and/or major natural barriers that must be breached or bypassed to see any new developments.
The problem with this is how does this even work without some form of amphibious assault at an extremely large scale. Worse, the geography of the Crimea makes any form of amphibious assault in the west that much more dangerous because the distance needed to travel by sea to reach any point that would have sufficient strategic value is fairly significant. Geography keeps Kherson from being a legit location to start from with essentially the best potential staging point being Odessa with a target around Zaliznyi Port (200 km or so). That is essentially infeasible to think that type of amphibious invasion at a scale not really seen since WW2 is remotely possible. Best case would be a large push across the river around Kherson, but the geography makes it extremely difficult with any attack going straight into the teeth of static defensive lines.
So now what? Unlike the previous breakthrough, there are very few places that make any sense for the Ukraine to mount an offensive. All signs point to 2 spots and unless they get real creative this is going to be a fairly predictable set of offensives that are going to be much more of a grind than anything else we have seen so far.