The Ukrainian armed forces appear to be successfully conducting their counter-offensive in the south of the country. On Saturday they successfully attack two bridges and thus Russian supply lines. A little later, the Ukrainian President Selenskyj reported a steady advance.
According to the leadership in Kyiv, the Ukrainian armed forces are making further progress on the southern front. The Cherson region in particular shows that Ukraine is moving towards victory, said President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his nightly video message. According to him, the troops are gradually moving into the region.
Russia had captured the southern Ukrainian region on the Black Sea immediately after the start of the war at the end of February. Separatists there who are loyal to Moscow recently announced that they want to hold a referendum on joining Russia. Ukraine wants to prevent this and wants to retake the area with the help of heavy weapons supplied by the USA and other NATO countries.
According to President Zelenskyy, this is succeeding. "Ukraine's armed forces are moving forward step by step in the area," he said. "The occupiers tried to gain a foothold there. But what good did it do them? The Ukrainian military is moving into the region in stages."
The British Ministry of Defense had already reported on Saturday that Russian troops on the southern front were coming under pressure. In the daily intelligence update, it said heavy fighting had raged in the region west of the Dnieper River for the past 48 hours. "Russia is trying to stop the Ukrainian advance with artillery fire along the Ingulets," it said. The Ingulets is a tributary of the Dnieper and a natural barrier in the region.
According to the British government, the Russian defense is not successful. "To the west of the Dnieper, the risk for the Russian supply lines increases," says the status report. Ukraine had succeeded in further attacks on the Antonivka Bridge. This crosses the Dnieper and is of central importance for supplying Russian troops west of the river.
A representative of the Ukrainian regional administration explained a little later that another bridge over the Ingulets, which is important for supplies, had been hit. This is an important step towards recapturing Kherson, he said. The counter-administration used by Russia confirmed the missile intercept. Accordingly, the Darivskyj Bridge was hit by seven rockets, but is still intact.
The day before, it was reported that Ukrainian forces had surrounded more than 1,000 Russian soldiers in the region. The Russians found themselves in a "tactical encirclement" near the settlement of Vysokopillya, said Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to President Zelenskyy, on Friday.
