Ukraine: Moscow has sent 1,000 troops as reinforcement as fighting intensifies in Kherson
88 towns and villages in Kherson region recaptured by Ukraine military.
Senior Ukraine military officials claimed that Russia is amassing troops on the right bank of the Dnieper river as both sides seem poised for a key battle for the city of Kherson.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said on Friday (October 28) that Moscow has sent in a contingent of 1,000 recently mobilised soldiers to make up for the massive loss of personnel in the Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kherson region, reports Reuters.
“In order to avoid panic among the personnel, the command of the Russian occupying forces is trying by all means to hide the real losses of servicemen.... There is a strengthening of the enemy group on the right bank of the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region with mobilized servicemen numbering up to 1,000 people," the General Staff said in a statement.
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It added that civilians are still being moved from Kherson city on the right bank of the Dnieper onto the left one.
Ukraine has pushed ahead with an offensive to reclaim the Kherson region and its capital of the same name, which Russian forces captured during the first days of the war, and Russian President Vladimir Putin announced its annexation.
Ukrainian forces were surrounding Kherson from the west and attacking Russia’s foothold on the right bank of the Dnieper River.However, tough terrain and bad weather held up the Ukrainian Army’s main advance in Kherson, officials said.
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Kherson, one of four partially occupied provinces that Russia proclaimed to have seized last month, controls the only land route to the Crimean Peninsula that Russia illegally annexed in 2014 and the mouth of the Dnieper that bisects Ukraine.
On Thursday (October 27), Russia-appointed officials in Kherson said that more than 70,000 people have left the city, including members of the Moscow-installed regional administration.
The Ukrainian military claimed on Friday that forces had killed 44 Russian soldiers in the past 24 hours, besides destroying an ammunition depot and a hangar with equipment, but the claim could not be independently verified.
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However, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said his 23 soldiers were killed and 58 others wounded in a Ukrainian artillery attack this week in Kherson. The comments were unusual as pro-Moscow forces have rarely admitted to major battlefield losses.
(With inputs from agencies)
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