After recapturing the strategic location of Lyman in the east, the Ukrainian army is trying to encircle Kherson, the capital of the region at the mouth of the Dnieper, in the south of the country.
The Ukrainian reconquest continues slowly but surely. After the victorious counter-offensive around Kharkiv in the east in early September and the recapture of the strategic city of Lyman on Saturday, the Kiev army is advancing in south-western Ukraine towards Kherson, the only capital of the region whose The Russians have had a huge city with since February 24 280,000 inhabitants, which borders on both banks of the Dnieper at its mouth.
The villages of Khreshchenivka and Dudchany, 100 kilometers from Kherson, were liberated. The Russian army would have retreated almost 40 kilometers. To retake the city, the Ukrainians tried to repeat the encirclement maneuver that had been effective at Lyman. They therefore advance along the Dnieper. The Russian army, isolated on the right bank west of the Dnieper, also has supply problems. In fact, the bridges connecting them to their left bank bases are regularly bombed by the Ukrainian army and nearly all are destroyed. Floating bridges are being built, but also under artillery fire from Kyiv.
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“It’s tense, let’s put it that way,” Vladimir Saldo, Russia’s appointed leader in Kherson, admitted on state television. Ukraine liberated the village of Dudhany, but “the situation remains complicated, hostilities continue,” commented the Ukrainian Presidency on Monday. According to Kyiv, “the enemy is looking for ways to improve the logistics of its troops, continues to build alternative crossings (from water bodies) and repairs near the Antonivsky and Kakhovka bridges” across the river. “Usually when so many Russian broadcasters sound the alarm, it means they’re in trouble,” tweeted Rob Lee, a researcher at the US think tank Foreign Policy Research Institute, posting screenshots of Russian military bloggers.
This huge counter-offensive in Kherson, announced a few months ago, has already allowed Kyiv to regain 500 square kilometers since the beginning of September. It would have provided “a breath of fresh air” for Russian troops, who shed other fronts to reinforce Kherson’s, Joseph Henrotin, editor-in-chief of Defense and International Security magazine and researcher at the Center for Analysis and Forecasting, told International Risks Le Figaro. “In Kherson, the Russians are on an “island”: the city and all the land around it are west of the Dnieper. But for the past two months, the Ukrainians have been attacking the bridges, destroying the pontoons behind them, and the Russian Navy no longer dares enter the western Black Sea. A withdrawal of Russian forces by sea has therefore become extremely difficult,” he added.
Kherson Oblast, like those of Zaporiya, Luhansk and Donetsk, was annexed by Russia after Potemkin referendums. But Moscow announced on Monday that it intends to “consult” the population of the annexed regions of Kherson and Zaporiya to define the borders. Boundaries that are no doubt determined more than ever by the sound of guns.
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