Ukraine has announced the first successes in the planned recapture of the Russian-controlled Kherson region. “We can say that a turning point has been reached on the battlefield,” Serhiy Khlan of the pro-Kyiv Kherson military government said in a TV interview on Sunday. “We see our forces advancing openly. Ukrainian troops would move from defensive to counter-offensive.
Chlan said Kherson would be “definitely released in September”. Thus, the Ukrainians are preparing a ground offensive. Supported by artillery supplies from the west, the Ukrainian army has gained ground in the southern region of Ukraine in recent weeks. Russian troops captured the capital of Kherson on March 3. The region is important to Ukraine’s agriculture and is close to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed Moscow’s plans for regime change in Ukraine. “We are definitely helping the Ukrainian people to free themselves from the regime that is absolutely hostile to the people and history,” Lavrov said in Cairo on Sunday. The Russian and Ukrainian peoples would live together.
In recent days, the Russian leadership has publicly reinforced its stance on the war in Ukraine. On Wednesday, Lavrov threatened to occupy other areas outside the Donbass. In view of the western arms supply and its greater range, it is necessary to push Kiev’s troops further away from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine, which Moscow has recognized as independent.
With his announcement that he wants to change the political leadership in Kyiv, Lavrov also contradicts his own statements from April. “We have no intention of changing the regime in Ukraine,” the Russian chief diplomat said in an interview with India Today television at the time. It was up to the Ukrainians to decide which leadership they wanted to live under, Lavrov assured at the time.