The city of Khersonthe only provincial capital controlled by the Russian army, has been for weeks the hot spot of the war in Ukraine. Located in the southeast of the country and on the banks of the Dnipro River, the noise of the artillery resonates with increasing force in a place where there are fewer and fewer people. Ukrainian troops claim to meet less than 12 kilometers away and Russian authorities in the region continue to evacuate civilians as they prepare to fight.
At the beginning of the month, it seemed that the Kremlin soldiers were falling back to avoid another military defeat after kyiv took control of Liman. There are reports that still today suggest that the soldiers are leaving the city along with the civilian population and crossing to the left bank (east) of the Dnipro.
However, the kyiv army does not believe that recovering what was the biggest defeat of the invasion will be so easy. According to the daily report issued by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Tuesday, the Russians are preparing “defensive positions” along the east bank of the river, while they prepare small paths for a “potential recall” on the western shore, where Jershon is located.
Exploration of the landmine clearance team and ordered unexploded on October 25.
“Near the settlement of Gornostayevka (in the north of the region), the engineering and sapper units of the Russian occupation troops they are laying mines along the coast, leaving small paths for the possible withdrawal of its troops from the right (western) bank”, they point out through the Telegram channel.
Along the same lines, the head of intelligence of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, Kirill Budanovhe assured in an interview with the newspaper Pravdathat Russia does not plan (for the moment) to leave the area, but has been carrying out a disinformation strategy to “create the illusion that all is lost“.
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Mariupol 2.0 site
According to Budanov, the occupants believe that they could be in a long siege situation like the one Ukrainians suffered in Mariupol in the spring. For 82 days, fighters from the Azov battalion held out in the port town, entrenched in the Azovstal steel complex without supplies, medicine or water. Finally, they ended up surrendering. And that, it seems, is what Moscow is trying to avoid with the escape routes they are building on one side of the river and the mines they are laying on the other.
The military has also pointed out that the Kremlin is sending more troops to Kherson and preparing the streets to defend. In fact, a few days ago, the kyiv government said that 2,000 Russian soldiers mobilized in recent weeks had arrived in the region to replace lost personnel and reinforce units on the front line.
In addition, it is possible that the Russian units are being completed with volunteers of Kherson. It’s a possibility left open over the weekend by the pro-Russian regional administration, which invited “men who want to stay in the city, despite the growing threat,” to join the city’s territorial defense units.
kyiv will manage to retake the north of the Kherson region before the end of the year, according to the ISW
In this way, Vladimir Putin’s troops confirmed your intention to resist and deal with the Ukrainian advance. Although, as has happened before, it could be an attempt to show that everything is going well in a moment of weakness. In this sense, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) points out that the Russian position in the upper part of the Kherson region (north of the capital) is untenable and they predict that kyiv will recover that territory by the end of 2022.
[Rusia prepara un ataque de “falsa bandera” en Jersón para culpar a la OTAN de las represalias]
It is still early to know the true intentions of the Russian forces: if they intend to fight or flee. Resist or abandon Kherson to his fate. However, as Guillermo Ortiz explained in this newspaper, there are reports suggesting that Russia could have the objective of exploiting the hydroelectric plant of Nova Kakhovka (north of the capital) and cause serious flooding in the area.
A policy of “Burned ground” -based on ending the resources of the occupied area so that those who arrive behind do not enjoy them- which is aligned with the philosophy of the ruthless general Sergei Surovikin, new commander of the Kremlin’s “special military operation”. In this way, he would carry out his “false flag” attack and could blame Ukraine and even its Western allies for sowing chaos and destruction.
