The new commander of Russian forces in the Eastern European war has made a rare acknowledgment of the pressures he has come under as Ukrainian offensives to retake areas to the south and east, which were annexed just weeks ago.
In another sign of Russian concern, the head of the strategic Kremlin-installed southern Kherson region on Tuesday announced an “organised and gradual displacement” of civilians from four cities on the Dnipro River.
“The situation in the area of ’Special Military Operation’ can be described as tense,” Sergey Surovikin, a Russian Air Force general who now commands the invasion forces, told state news channel Rossiya 24.
About Kherson, Surovikin stated that “the situation in this area is difficult. The enemy is deliberately attacking infrastructure and residential buildings.”
Russian forces in the area have retreated 20 to 30 kilometers in recent weeks and risk being trapped on the west bank of the 2,200 kilometer-long Dnipro River that cuts through Ukraine.
Vladimir Rogov, a member of the Russian-installed council that governs Zaporizhzhia, also in the south, said Kiev forces had stepped up their nighttime bombardment of Russian-controlled Enerhodar. Many of the employees of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant live in the city.
Artillery fire hit the outskirts of the city and there were 10 attacks around the local plant, explained by the messaging app Telegram.
Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports.
Both Ukraine and Russia have denied attacking civilians, although Kiev has accused Moscow forces of war crimes.
President Vladimir Putin ordered what he calls a “special military operation” on February 24 to “guarantee Russian security and protect Russian speakers in Ukraine”.
Ukraine and its allies accuse Moscow of an unprovoked war to seize its territory.
continuous attack
Russian troop positions in Kupiansk and Lyman in eastern Ukraine and in the area between Mykolaiv and Kryvyi Rih in Kherson province were cited by Surovikin as under continuous attack.
He appeared to admit that there was a danger of Ukrainian forces advancing towards the town of Kherson, which is near the mouth of the Dnipro River on the west bank.
Kherson, one of four partially occupied Ukrainian provinces that Russia claims to have annexed, controls both the only land route to the Crimean peninsula, annexed in 2014, and the mouth of the Dnipro.
After organizing what Moscow called referendums in September, which Kiev and Western governments denounced as illegal, Putin proclaimed the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces on Ukraine’s eastern border — known as the Donbass — as well as Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as full-fledged regions of Ukraine. Russia.
Vladimir Saldo, head of the Kherson region, based in Russia, explained that the risk of attack by Ukrainian forces led to the decision to evacuate some civilians from the four cities.
“The Ukrainian side is gathering forces for a large-scale offensive,” said Saldo. The Russian military was preparing to repel the offensive, he continued. “Where the military operates, there is no place for civilians.”
missiles and drones
Last week, Russia unleashed the biggest wave of missile and drone attacks against Ukraine since the invasion began. The motivation came as revenge for an explosion that damaged the bridge from Russian territory to Crimea.
Kiev did not take responsibility for the explosion, but celebrated it.
Ukraine has invited United Nations (UN) experts to inspect what it says are downed Iranian-origin drones used by Russia in violation of a Security Council resolution, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
Russia’s reliance on Iranian-made drones exposes how the country is “militarily and politically bankrupt,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his video speech late on Tuesday.
Ukraine accuses Russia of using Shahed-136 “kamikaze drones” made in Iran. The country denies providing them and the Kremlin has also denied using them.
However, two senior Iranian officials and two diplomats explained to Reuters that Tehran had promised to supply Russia with more drones and missiles.
Russia destroyed nearly a third of Ukraine’s power plants last week, Zelensky expressed. According to the president, another 10 regions were targeted in the last 24 hours, urging Ukrainians to reduce their electricity consumption at night.
Source: CNN Brasil
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