“Most likely our units, our soldiers, will leave for the left (east) bank,” Kirill Stremusov, the deputy political administrator of the Kherson region stationed in Russia, said in an interview Thursday on Solovyov Live, an online pro-Kremlin. media. The region includes the city of Kherson, the capital of the region of the same name, and the only major Ukrainian city captured intact since Russia invaded the country eight months ago. It also includes one side of a dam across the Dnieper, which controls the supply of irrigation water to Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia seized and later annexed in 2014. Russia has previously denied that its forces planned to withdraw from the region, with any withdrawal representing a major defeat for its forces. There was no word Thursday from senior Kremlin officials as photos circulated on social media of key buildings no longer flying Russian flags. (Al Jazeera) Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern military command, said talk of a retreat could be a Russian trap and the photos – shared on pro-Kremlin Telegram accounts – disinformation. “This could be a manifestation of a specific challenge to create the impression that the settlements are abandoned, that it is safe to enter them, while they are preparing for street fighting,” he said in televised comments.
“Clear as mud”
Russia has been fighting for months to hang on to the pocket of land it holds on the west bank at the mouth of the Dnieper River that bisects Ukraine. Ukraine has been advancing since early October, attacking the main river bridges and making it difficult for Russia to continue supplying its troops on the west bank. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, speaking at the Pentagon on Thursday, did not respond to a question about whether Russian forces were preparing to leave, but expressed confidence in Ukraine’s ability to turn them away. “On the issue of whether the Ukrainians can take the remaining territory on the western side of the Dnipro [Dnieper] river and in Kherson, I definitely think they have the ability to do that,” Austin said. “Most importantly, Ukrainians believe they have the ability to do it. We saw them engage in a very methodical but effective effort to take back their dominant territory.” Ukrainians experience continuous blackouts as Russia hits key power and water infrastructure [Efrem Lukatsky/AP Photo] A Western official, speaking to the Reuters news agency on condition of anonymity, estimated that Russia was planning to retreat east of the river so that it could better defend its forces. “We believe this planning is almost certainly well advanced,” the official said, adding that some Russian commanders had already been redeployed. “We would estimate that in Kherson, it is likely that most echelons of command have now withdrawn across the river to the east, leaving quite demoralized and often in some cases leaderless troops to face the Ukrainians on the other side,” the Western official said. Ukrainian troops on the front lines are more cautious, however, telling Reuters reporters who visited last week that they had seen no evidence of Russian forces withdrawing and believed they were actually strengthening their positions. Writing on Twitter, Michael Coffman, director of Russian Studies at the Center for Naval Analyzes in Washington, who recently returned from areas near the Kherson front, said Moscow’s intentions were unclear and the fighting in the Kherson was “difficult”. He doubted that Russia would give up the west bank of the river “without being forcefully pressed,” but “he could also be wrong about that.” “The situation in Kherson is as clear as mud,” Kofman wrote.
“Energy terrorism”
As the war increasingly focuses on Kherson, Kyiv condemned what it said was the “massive forced relocation” of its citizens living in Russian-held areas. “The Russian occupation administration has started the mass forced relocation of residents of the left bank of the Kherson region … to the temporarily occupied Crimea or Russia,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday. “Similar deportations are also taking place from Russia in Zaporizhia, Luhansk and Donetsk regions, as well as in Crimea.” Kherson’s governor, Vladimir Saldo, who is based in Moscow, said he was moving people further into the region or into Russia because of the risks of a “massive missile attack”. Authorities stationed there in Moscow said last week that 70,000 civilians had fled their homes on the right bank of the Dnieper. Ukraine has accused Russian forces of war crimes during the eight-month war, charges Moscow denies. Russia denies it deliberately targeted civilians, although the conflict has killed thousands, displaced millions and destroyed cities and towns. The removal of the flag is the first indication that the Russian military may be preparing to abandon the city of Kherson, the only regional capital Moscow has captured in its eight-month invasion. — The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) November 3, 2022 Recent attacks on Ukraine’s energy and water supplies have hit civilians hard as winter approaches, a time when temperatures can drop well below zero degrees Celsius. Some 4.5 million Ukrainians in the capital Kyiv and 10 other regions were left without power in the latest blackouts caused by Russian attacks, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address overnight. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in southern Ukraine, the largest in Europe, was also disconnected from the power grid after the bombing destroyed the remaining high-voltage lines, leaving the facility running only on diesel generators. “The very fact that Russia is resorting to energy terrorism shows the weakness of our enemy. They cannot defeat Ukraine on the battlefield, so they are trying to break our people in this way,” Zelensky said. Russian strikes last month destroyed about a third of Ukraine’s power plants, and the government urged Ukrainians to conserve electricity as much as possible.
