Ukraine stepped up its drive to retake the Russian-controlled south of the country by trying to bomb and isolate Russian troops in hard-to-resupply areas, but said it saw evidence that Moscow was redeploying its forces to defend the territory.
Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, which borders Russian-annexed Crimea, fell to Russian forces soon after they began what Moscow calls “a special military operation” on February 24.
Ukraine, which describes Russia’s actions as an imperial-style war of conquest, said that its planes had struck five Russian strongholds around the city of Kherson and another city in the area.
British military intelligence, which helps Ukraine, said it is likely that Ukrainian forces had also established a bridgehead south of a river which runs along the wider Kherson region’s northern border.
“Ukraine’s counter-offensive in Kherson is gathering momentum,” it said in a statement.
Ukraine says it has retaken some small settlements on the region’s northern edge in recent weeks as it tries to push Russian forces back, a potential prelude to what Kyiv has billed as a major counter-offensive to retake the south.
Russia said yesterday that it is unfazed, with the defence ministry saying its planes had attacked a Ukrainian infantry brigade in the far north of the Kherson region and killed more than 130 of its soldiers in the last 24 hours.
Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Russian-appointed military-civilian administration running the Kherson region, has also dismissed Western and Ukrainian assessments of the battlefield situation.
“(Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky’s statement that Kherson region will be liberated in 3-6 weeks is ... a lie. All these counter-offensives that result in a large number of Ukrainian casualties are coming to nothing,” Stremousov told Russia’s RIA news agency on Wednesday.
Ukraine has used Western-supplied long-range missile systems to badly damage three bridges across the River Dnipro in recent weeks, making it harder for Russia to supply its forces on the western bank.
British intelligence said the strategy is starting to isolate Russian forces in the Kherson region.
“Russia’s 49th Army, stationed on the west bank of the Dnipro River, now looks highly vulnerable,” it said in an intelligence bulletin.
Kherson city was now virtually cut off from the other territories occupied by Russia.
“Its loss would severely undermine Russia’s attempts to paint the occupation as a success,” it said.
A Ukrainian strike on Wednesday on the Antonivsky bridge, the sole span serving Kherson city, prompted its closure to traffic.
That forced Russia to open a ferry service, the route of which it said would constantly change for security reasons.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, tweeted that Russia was concentrating “the maximum number of troops” in the direction of the Kherson region but gave no details.
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to President Zelensky, said Russia was conducting a “massive redeployment” of forces from the east to the south in what amounted to a strategic shift from attack to defence.
RIA reported yesterday that Russian security services had uncovered a group of Ukrainian agents in Kherson who had been paid to pass on the map co-ordinates of Russian forces there to Ukraine for targeting with artillery.
Zelensky said Ukraine would one day rebuild the Antonivsky bridge over the Dnipro and other crossings in the region.
“We are doing everything to ensure that the occupying forces do not have any logistical opportunities in our country,” he said in a Wednesday evening address on the eve of what is Ukraine’s annual Statehood Day.
Oleksiy Gromov, a senior member of Ukraine military’s General Staff, told a news briefing yesterday that the bridge is of great importance for Russia’s defensive effort and for Ukraine’s attempted offensive.
“We have repeatedly struck the Antonivsky bridge ... there is significant damage to the bridge’s structures,” Gromov said.
Russia continues to carry out its own daily strikes against targets across Ukraine.
Five people were killed and 25 wounded in a Russian missile strike on a flight school in the central Ukrainian city of Kropyvnytsky yesterday, the regional governor said.
“Twenty-five people have been transferred to medical facilities and are receiving treatment. Five are dead,” governor Andriy Raikovich said in a video on his social media.
He added that the strikes had hit two hangars around 12.20pm (0920 GMT).
The Interfax-Ukraine news agency quoted Raikovich as saying that there were 12 servicemen among the wounded.
Citing city officials, Interfax-Ukraine reported that the attack on the city of Kropyvnytsky damaged “aviation equipment”, aircraft and nearby buildings.
Kropyvnytsky has an estimated population of 220,000 people and lies some 300km (186 miles) south of Kyiv.
Fierce fighting is also underway in eastern Ukraine where Russia is trying to take control of the entirety of the industrialised Donbas region.
Ukraine confirmed late on Wednesday that Russian forces had captured the Soviet-era coal-fired Vuhlehirsk power plant, Ukraine’s second-largest, in what was Moscow’s first significant gain in Donbas in more than three weeks.
Kyiv played down the importance of the setback.