The road to Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine taken over by Russia, passes through charred wheat fields and villages devastated by war fighting. Missile remains litter the asphalt, where the rubble of the houses destroyed by the bombings and abandoned by their inhabitants aboundswho left the city fleeing the horror of war.
Ukrainian forces are deployed along the front line, preparing to launch their most ambitious action after five months of war: the reconquest of Kherson, the first city to fall under the rule of enemy troops. Kherson, located on the shores of the Black Sea, is a key city for the Kremlin and from there Vladimir Putin’s troops have organized most of their offensive throughout the territory. Regaining control may be decisive for Ukraine and it would give his army a considerable morale boost after months of intense fighting.
According to the newspaper New York TimesRight now the fighting to the west and north of the borders has intensified as Ukrainian forces (just 50km from the city) prepare to launch their final offensive.
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Ukraine and its main supporters, the United States (USA) and the United Kingdom, consider that the Russian military campaign now enters a critical phase for Moscow due to the difficulties he has in maintaining his offense.
“As soon as we received the HIMARS, panic spread in the Russian Army. Logistics centers and arsenals fell under our attacks, as well as tactical decision-making centers,” the president’s adviser declared a few days ago at a press conference. ukrainian, Mikhailo Podoliak.
And this state of panic, according to the representative of the Ukrainian Presidency, “is felt by people in the regions” occupied by Russia, who “understand that everything will change.”
Russia pulls reserves
According to the Ukrainian command, the Russian forces have been forced to use reserve units to defend the occupied positions in the south of Ukraine and prevent the counterattack of the Ukrainian army.
[Rusia entra en una fase crítica en la guerra y Putin se ve obligado a recurrir a sus reservistas]
“The enemy is defending the previously occupied positionsis concentrating its efforts on avoiding the offensive of the Defense Forces and has introduced reserve units”, affirmed the Ukrainian High Command in its morning part, in statements collected by Eph.
Information corroborated by the American Institute for War Studies (ISW), according to which, “Russia’s current operational pace does not differ much from that during the officially declared operational pause between July 7 and 16.”
“Russian forces continued to carry out minor attacks throughout this time northwest of Sloviansk and around the Siversk and Bakhmut areas without capturing any decisive ground,” the ISW noted.
The US institute found that the Russian forces stationed in this area “have carried out fewer ground attacks along the border between the Kharkov and Donetsk regions than during the operational pause.”
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For its part, British intelligence confirmed that in the Donbas region “Ukrainian forces continue to repel Russian attempts to storm the Vuhlehirska power plant”, an essential step to focus their efforts on Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the main strongholds of the Donetsk region.
Changes in the balance of forces
And it is that while the Russian troops have used between 55 and 60% of their reserve of high-precision missiles, according to the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine (GUR), Ukraine receives more and more powerful and precise weapons.
GUR spokesman Vadym Skibitksy indicated that Russia uses its high-precision missiles less and less frequentlywhich include the Kh-101, Kh-555, Iskander and Kalibr systems, due to the effect of Western sanctions that limit access to electronic components necessary for these systems.
The Ukrainian president himself, Volodymyr Zelenskycelebrated this gradual change in the balance of forces by stating, in one of his daily messages, that “HIMARS has become a common word for us, just like Javelin or NLAW, like ‘Stugna’ or ‘Neptun'”.
Zelensky highlighted the efforts of the Ukrainian government to gain access to “modern air defense systems, which we are requesting from partners” and assured that “Russian terror must be defeated. And this will be our joint victoryof the Ukrainian and American peoples”.
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