Ukraine: According to British defence and intelligence officials, a Ukrainian counteroffensive has effectively cut off the Russian-occupied southern city of Kherson, leaving thousands of Russian troops stationed near the Dnipro River "highly vulnerable." Ukraine has made it clear that it intends to retake Kherson, which fell to Russia in the early days of the February 24 invasion launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ukraine's presidential adviser, Oleksiy Arestovich, said on Thursday that the operation to liberate Kherson had "already begun." Kyiv's forces, he said, intended to isolate Russian troops there and give them three choices: "retreat, if possible, surrender, or be destroyed."
According to the British military, Ukraine's counteroffensive in Kherson is "gaining momentum."
"Their forces have almost certainly established a bridgehead south of the Ingulets River, which forms the northern border of Russian-occupied Kherson," the British Defense Ministry said on Thursday. Ukraine has also damaged at least three bridges across the Dnieper River with its new long-range artillery, according to the report.
Russia's 49th Army, stationed on the west bank of the Dnipro River, now appears highly vulnerable," it said in a regular intelligence bulletin on Twitter, adding that Kherson was effectively cut off from Russia's other occupied territories. "Its loss would seriously undercut Russia's efforts to portray the occupation as a success." On Wednesday, the 1,000-metre-long Antonivskyi bridge over the Dnieper River was attacked. The bridge had been closed to trucks after previous Ukrainian attacks damaged it last week, but it had remained open to passenger vehicles until the latest strike.
The bridge is the main Dnieper crossing in the Kherson region. By closing the crossings, the Russian military would struggle to keep its forces in the region supplied. The only other option is a dam at a hydroelectric plant in Kakhovka, which was also targeted by Ukrainians last week but is still operational. "We are doing everything possible to ensure that the occupying forces have no logistical opportunities in our country," President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an evening address on Wednesday.
Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-installed regional administration in Kherson, attempted to downplay the bridge damage, insisting that the attack would have no effect on the outcome of the hostilities "in any way." Russian officials had previously stated that they would instead use pontoon bridges and ferries to transport forces across the Dnieper River. Nonetheless, the attack provided a morale boost to Ukrainians as the war enters its sixth month. Russian forces are advancing through eastern Ukraine's Donbas region, occupying roughly one-fifth of the country.
Russia has set its sights on large swaths of southern Ukraine, where it has occupied two regions north of the Black Sea peninsula Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
However, Ukrainian forces have been regaining ground in the Kherson region in recent weeks. Their counteroffensive, backed up by Western-supplied long-range artillery, has pushed their forces closer to Kherson, which had a pre-war population of less than 300,000 people. The secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council, Oleksiy Danilov, earlier tweeted that Russia was concentrating "the maximum number of troops" in the direction of Kherson, but provided no further details.
The presidential adviser, Arestovich, stated that Russia was conducting a "massive redeployment" of forces from the east to the south, implying a strategic shift from attack to defence.
If confirmed, the redeployment would follow Moscow's first significant gain in more than three weeks. Russian-backed forces claimed control of Ukraine's second-largest coal-fired power plant, Vuhlehirska, built in the Soviet era. The power plant is located near Svitlodarsk in eastern Ukraine's hotly contested Donetsk region. Russia invaded Ukraine in order to demilitarise and "denazify" the country. Thousands of civilians have been killed, and millions more have fled. Cities have been pulverised by Russian artillery barrages and air strikes
On Wednesday, a US lawmaker claimed that more than 75,000 Russians had been killed or injured in Ukraine's conflict. Democrat Elissa Slotkin spoke to CNN after a classified briefing with US President Joe Biden's administration officials. Russia reportedly amassed 150,000 soldiers along the Ukrainian border in the run-up to its invasion.
We were told that over 75,000 Russians had been killed or injured, which is a huge number. "You've got incredible amounts of investment in their land forces, and over 80% of their land forces are bogged down and tired," Slotkin said. According to the most recent estimate from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 15,000 Russian forces were killed in fighting. The Russian military reported its losses in March, stating that 1,351 troops were killed in action and 3,825 were injured. According to Zelensky, Ukraine's battlefield casualties have dropped from a high of 100-200 per day in May-June to around 30 per day now.
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