KRYVYI RIG, Ukraine — A
Kremlin-installed official in the south
Ukraine region of Kherson urged
residents to remain calm Tuesday as reports were surfacing that Kyiv’s forces
were making sweeping gains into Russian-controlled territory.
اضافة اعلان
Moscow this month called up hundreds of thousands of
troops to bolster the military in eastern Ukraine where Kyiv’s forces have
recently made lightning advances and
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu meanwhile
put the number at 200,000 as of Tuesday.
Ukraine’s southern region of Kherson was one of the
first where Kyiv’s defenses collapsed in February after Russian forces invaded
but Ukrainian forces recently have accelerated a months-long offensive to
recapture it.
“Our artillery and fighter jets are hitting enemy
forces that enter the sovereign territory of Russia,” said Kirill Stremousov,
the Moscow-appointed deputy head of the Kherson region.
“There is no
reason to panic,” he added in his message to residents of the Black Sea region
on social media.
The reported gains into Kherson are a threat to the
Kremlin’s claim to have formally integrated the agriculturally rich region with
a pre-war population of around one million people into the Russian Federation
last week.
According to Russian news agencies and unconfirmed
social media reports, unidentified forces have attacked occupying
Russian units
and officials, while Ukrainian forces have destroyed river bridges, leaving
Russian units vulnerable to being trapped.
Some 80 percent of
the region is estimated to be under Russian control.
‘Fierce’ frontline fighting
He called on Kherson’s
residents to remain calm after his superior, Vladimir Saldo, conceded in an
interview that Ukrainian forces had made a “breakthrough” in the region’s north
east, at the village of Dudchany along the Dniepr River.
But he claimed the push was short-lived and that
Russian forces had pushed back again the advancing Ukrainian forces.
Ukrainian officials have so far remained silent
about any concrete territorial gains but the head of the presidential
administration
Andriy Yermak on Tuesday posted emojis of watermelons on social
media, hinting at gains in the region famous for the fruit.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an
address to the nation Monday evening said that “there are new liberated towns
and villages in several regions”.
“Fierce fighting continues in many sectors of the
frontline,” he added, claiming that “more and more occupiers are trying to
escape”.
Western officials have said that as many as 20,000
Russian troops could be at risk of being trapped on the western bank of the
Dniepr river, which cuts diagonally through the region and flows into the Black
Sea.
Ukraine’s apparent gains in Kherson follow a similar
trend in the eastern regions of Kharkiv and Dontetsk in recent weeks, with a
series of setbacks coinciding with Moscow’s claim to have annexed the regions.
The four territories — Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in
the south and Donetsk and Lugansk in the east — create a crucial land corridor
between Russia and the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014.
Together, all five make up around 20 percent of
Ukraine.
Shoigu said the Russian men mobilized to back up
Moscow’s forces were being trained at “80 training grounds and six training
centers”.
“As of today more than 200,000 people have entered
the army,” Shoigu during a televised meeting.
The Kremlin’s mobilization has led to some protests
and an exodus of men of military age — with tens of thousands fleeing the
draft, mainly to ex-Soviet neighbors.
Kazakhstan said Tuesday that more than 200,000
Russians had crossed into it in two weeks.
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