Apparent move in occupied areas comes as Ukrainian military sets up positions on eastern side of Dnipro River
Ukrainian authorities say Russian forces are “forcibly evacuating” civilians in the area of the Kherson region that they still occupy, a day after it was claimed“I have information that the evacuation starts today [Sunday] with an excuse of protecting civilians from the consequences of heavy fighting in the area,” Oleksandr Samoylenko, the Ukrainian head of Kherson’s regional council, said. Russian troops were “trying to steal as much as they can” as they withdrew, he added.
Ukraine’s southern military command meanwhile reported airstrikes in Kherson region by four Russian Su-35 jets.Attention has focused on Ukraine’s southern front around the key city of Kherson since Sunday’s report from the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based thinktank, which suggested Ukrainian forces had established positions on the east bank of the Dnipro, opposite Kherson in the area of a settlement called Dachy. The ISW made the claim after geolocating reports from Russian sources.
The handful of reports that have emerged since the beginning of the year about the delta have painted a picture of bitter fighting for small and mainly uninhabited islands, some of which have changed hands several times. With the islands and the river threatened by artillery strikes from both sides, Russian and Ukrainian forces have lost boats in the fighting.
The reports of a potential Ukrainian advance in the south come nearly six months after Ukraine liberated Kherson city and the west bank of the Dnipro in November 2022. Speculation over Ukrainian advances in the south came as Russian authorities said they had repelled a drone attack on the port of Sevastopol in Moscow-annexed Crimea, adding that there was no damage or casualties.
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