War in Ukraine: in the Kherson region, the counter-offensive has already begun

A Ukrainian soldier in a trench in the Kherson region, June 12, 2022. © GENYA SAVILOV/AFP

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2 mins

The war in Ukraine entered its sixth month on Sunday 24 July, and while the situation on the Donbass front seems to have rebalanced somewhat to Ukraine's benefit, in recent days there have been larger movements in the south of country, particularly in the Kherson region, which should be the scene of the next major battle of the war, this time with a counter-offensive by Ukraine scheduled for August.

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With our correspondent in Odessa,

Early signs show that this battle may have already begun.

A few days ago, Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said that Volodymyr Zelensky had ordered him to reconquer the south, and that to do this Ukraine was preparing an army of one million men.

It seems indeed that Ukraine has decided to concentrate its

 order to obtain a first major one-on-one victory, which could change the fate of the war.

In recent weeks, deep strikes have multiplied to weaken the Russian army by destroying its command centers, logistics points and ammunition centers, especially in the strategic city of Nova Kakhovka.

The Ukrainian army is using, it seems to good effect, Western multiple missile systems, and in particular

, which have enabled it in recent days to strike several bridges over the Dnieper, in particular the Antonovsky bridge, 1.3 kilometers, in the suburbs of Kherson.

Locking the Russians East of the Dnieper

From now on, the Ukrainian strategy becomes more readable.

kyiv seems to want to lock the Russian forces on the right bank of the Dnieper in a cauldron by preventing any possibility of support or withdrawal, by destroying the bridges over the river.

Finally, the Ukrainian offensives have multiplied in recent hours on the Kherson front line.

According to several reports, the Ukrainians are about to surround more than a thousand Russian troops in the town of Vyssokopillya, north of Kherson.

And proof that the operations are launched, the staff indicated this weekend that several villages were taken over, and that during the fighting, Vitaly Gulyaev, the colonel who heads the 28th Mechanized Brigade, one of the main units in the region of Kherson, was killed in action.

On the question of the timetable for this counter-offensive, Natalya Humeniuk, spokesperson for the Southern Command of the Ukrainian army, smiled and replied to RFI that operational secrecy was the key to Ukrainian success.

If she made it clear that the operations have already been launched, she explains that Ukraine will remain very discreet about this counter-offensive.

But last week, Andriy Yermak, Zelensky's right-hand man and the country's true strongman, said the battle of Kherson must be ended victoriously before the onset of winter, which will make any offensive extremely difficult in due to the weather.

►Also read: Kherson, Russian "laboratory of horrors", for the United States

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