Faced with the Ukrainian advance, Russian forces are increasingly occupying the occupied city of Kherson, Ukraine uninhabitablein apparent preparation for a great battle that has been preparing for months.
Both sides have done a lot about what is happening in Kherson, the only regional capital taken by Moscow forces in their invasion this year;
According to reports, the Russian president Vladimir Putin he refused a request from his army to withdraw from the city to more defensible positions.
The Russian flag was removed from the administrative buildings, military checkpoints were abandoned, most of the population and the Kremlin-appointed occupation government fled, and essential services ceased to function.
But so far there is no sign of the surrender of the Moscow armed forces in Kherson, southern Ukraine, and Ukrainian forces say Russia has amassed 40,000 soldiers over there.
Fighting rages north and west in the wider Kherson region and, as Ukrainian forces advance towards the city, they say they have recaptured more than 100 villages and villages in the area west of the Dnieper River.
But recent events have fueled speculation about what’s happening and what’s to come next.
A Russian pushback?
A pitched battle for control of the battered city?
A fake Russian retreat to lure the Ukrainians into a trap?
Between inaccurate communications, unverified claims from Russian officials, and limited information from the Ukrainian military, here are some of the things that are known about Kherson and why control of the city is important.
The conditions for civilians are becoming darker.
People left in the largely uninhabited region report that the Russians are cutting off electricity and drinking water not only in the city of Kherson, but also in the towns and villages along the western bank of the Dnieper.
“They are making a desert with the right bank,” said Petro, a 30-year-old man who lives in the area and managed to send a message Sunday night.
Due to concerns about his safety, he contacted on the condition that his last name was not used.
“The poles of the current exploded today, then we have no electricity or water“, He added.
While state media in Russia claimed Ukrainian bombing had damaged power lines, Yaroslav Yanushevych, the exiled Ukrainian leader of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, blamed the Russian troops.
Russian forces have also laid mines around water towers in Beryslav, Yanushevych said, referring to a town less than 50 miles from the city of Kherson and just north of a critical dam near the front line of the battle.
Ukrainian officials say the Russians, who have told civilians to evacuate, fear that those left will be able to provide intelligence information advance Ukrainian forces or sabotage the Russian army.
The Kremlin-appointed governor of the region warned that any civilians remaining there could be treated as hostile.
About 250,000 people lived in the city before the war.
Ukrainian activists estimate that between 30,000 and 60,000 people remained, but it is impossible to know how accurate these assumptions are.
Last month, the occupation authorities ordered the evacuation of civilians from the west bank of the river.
They sent thousands east into a territory more tightly controlled by Russia, blocking routes to areas controlled by Ukraine.
The Moscow-installed government also left, while plundered the city, according to Ukrainian residents and officials.
Some Ukrainian officials and residents say the evacuation of civilians was a pretext for forced deportations.
Others say it was about freeing up space for the newly mobilized Russian troops.
miss Cherson it would be a severe blow to the Kremlin.
When Russian forces stormed the Antonivsky Bridge over the Dnieper River in March and entered the city of Kherson, a major port and former shipbuilding center, it marked their greatest success in the early days of the war.
Putin had hoped to use the wider Kherson region as a bridgehead for a journey further west to the port city of Odessa, but that effort failed.
If Russian forces were pushed back across the Dnieper, it would deal a profound symbolic and practical blow to the Kremlin and its ambition to take over all of southern Ukraine.
The city of Kherson and its surroundings are the only remaining Russian foothold west of the river.
After Russia illegally seized the Crimean peninsula to the south, Ukraine cut off a Dnieper canal that had been Crimea’s main freshwater supply.
The invasion earlier this year allowed Russia to resume the flow of water, but new setbacks in Kherson could allow Ukrainians to stop it again.
With his refusal so far to withdraw, Putin has signaled the prestige and strategic value he brings to the region.
Last month, his government said it had annexed all four regions of Ukraine, including Kherson, even though its troops did not control all of them, in a move that has been widely denounced as illegal.
Ukraine has isolated Russian forces in Cherson.
Since the end of the summer, Ukrainian forces armed with long-range Western artillery have waged a determined campaign to cut off Russian forces west of the river, bombing the bridges that Moscow used to supply and strengthen them.
At the same time, Ukrainian troops made a grueling advance on Russian positions.
The Russians connected on bridges of boats and ships, which were also bombed.
Their only river crossing is the Kakhovka Dam, more than 30 miles northeast of the city, which has become an important supply route.
Each side accused the other of planning to sabotage the dam, which could have catastrophic consequences.
Much of the land downstream, including parts of the city of Kherson, could be flooded.
And it could cause a drop in the level of the reservoir behind the dam, the key source of cooling water for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe.
The wide open fields of the Kherson region, crisscrossed by irrigation canals which make for excellent defensive positions, slowed the Ukrainian advance and the arrival of autumn turned much of the soil to mud.
Analysts say Russia has sent some of its most experienced fighters to the region and stored ammunition and other supplies there.
Both sides reported a brutal urban battle for Kherson.
The Ukrainian army says that despite the withdrawal of the checkpoints, there is no evidence of a withdrawal of Russian forces.
Both sides have made public statements signaling an upcoming battle.
If Moscow decides to defend the city, military experts say it could be a bloody battle street by street
Ukrainian forces are still far from the city limits and are reportedly facing a strong resistance.
A pro-Russian delegate leader in Kherson said over the weekend that Ukraine was building artillery, aircraft and helicopters in preparation for the next phase of its attack on the region.
Senior officials in Kiev, Ukraine said Moscow could try to create the illusion that its forces are leaving Kherson to lure Ukrainians into the fight.
c.2022 The New York Times Company
Source: Clarin
