Ukraine steps up drive to retake Kherson region
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 warned 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 yesterday 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 was 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 has retaken some small settlements in the north of the region 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 it was unfazed by Ukraine's efforts. The Russian defence ministry said its planes had attacked a Ukrainian infantry brigade in the far north of the Kherson region and killed more than 130 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 situation.
Ukraine also shelled an important bridge straddling the Dnipro river in Kherson, closing it to traffic. President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine would rebuild the Antonivskyi 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.
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, reports Reuters.
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.
In the central Ukrainian region, Russian strikes on Kyrovograd left five people dead and injured more than two dozen others, the region's governor said.
"There are victims, dead and wounded. Twenty-five have already been taken to medical institutions - they were wounded. Five were killed, one of them from the military," the governor said.
A military base north of the capital Kyiv was struck by Russian missiles yesterday. Senior Ukraine military official Oleksiy Gromov told reporters that Russian forces had fired "six Kalibr cruise missiles on a military base in Lyutizh".
The office of Zelensky 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.
But it played down the importance of the setback.
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