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Ukraine announces offensive operations across the south

August 29th 2022

KYIV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian military announced on Monday that it had launched offensive operations in multiple areas along the front line in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, perhaps signaling the start of a long planned counteroffensive aimed at retaking territory seized by Russia. Fighting along a swath of the front line escalated sharply on Monday, according to Ukrainian military and civilian officials, and the Ukrainian government said that its military had “breached the occupiers’ first line of defense near Kherson.” It was not immediately possible to verify the claim. A United States defense official lent support to the idea that Ukraine was escalating its offensive in the south, saying: “The announced offensive shows the Ukrainians’ appetite for progress on the battlefield.”

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters, added that the Pentagon remained cautious about whether Ukraine’s current military capabilities were sufficient to make significant gains. And Junior Sgt. Dmytro Pysanka, a Ukrainian soldier stationed on the Kherson front, said “our offensive is ongoing.” “I don’t know what’s going to happen next and how, but so far all goes according to the plan,” he said in a text message. The reports of intensifying fighting coincided with an announcement on Monday by the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency that a team of nuclear experts would visit the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which lies to the north of Kherson.

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SOURCE = New York Times

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Ukraine says its troops are counter attacking Russian lines to south

August 29th 2022

Ukraine’s long-awaited southern counteroffensive has started, a representative for the country’s southern military command said on Monday, as Kyiv’s forces attempted to punch through Russian lines around the southern city of Kherson. Natalia Humeniuk, spokesperson for Ukraine’s Operational Command South, told Ukrainian media that the country’s armed forces “have started offensive actions in various directions,” and in particular toward the southern region of Kherson, which is was occupied by Russian forces early in the war. The city of Kherson holds a vital strategic position on the Dnieper River and Black Sea. According to local reports, Ukrainian forces launched their counterattack overnight. Kherson authorities have called on residents to seek shelter and stock up on food and water.

Humeniuk refused to reveal the targets of the counteroffensive. In a statement to CNN, she said details would be available after the operation is complete. She also urged people to remain silent on the attack: “Any military operation requires silence. In the conditions of a hybrid war, such a reaction to news from the front harms the armed forces.” Russian news agency RIA reported that shelling by Ukrainian forces destroyed a secondary school and houses in the city of Beryslav in the Kherson region, and that residents were seeking shelters in another city across the river.

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SOURCE = Politico

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Ukraine launches counter-offensive to retake Kherson from Russia

August 29th 2022

Ukraine’s campaign to retake Russian-held territory in the south appeared to take a major step forward as officials on Monday announced the start of a long-awaited counter-offensive against Moscow’s forces.
As explosions were reported across the southern frontline, multiple officials confirmed Ukraine’s armed forces had “breached” Russia’s first line of defences around occupied Kherson in social media posts.
“The first line of Russian defences on the Kherson front has been breached,” Sergey Khlan, an aide to the ousted Ukrainian head of the Kherson region, said on the Telegram messaging app. “Today there was a powerful artillery attack on enemy positions in… the entire territory of the occupied Kherson region,” he said. “This is the announcement of what we have been waiting for since the spring – it is the beginning of the de-occupation of Kherson region.”

Natalia Humeniuk, spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern operational command, added: “Today we started offensive actions in various directions, including in the Kherson region.” Kyiv has been planning for a major counter-offensive in its Russian-controlled southern regions for two months. Kherson was the first major city to fall as Russian forces pushed north out of Crimea at the beginning of the invasion. It has since been used by Moscow as a strategic hub and staging post for its offensives across southern Ukraine. In the build-up to the attack, Ukraine’s armed forces have used Western-provided long-range rocket launchers to pummel Moscow’s supply lines and logistical hubs.

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SOURCE = The Telegraph

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Ukraine says it started counteroffensive to retake areas in south

August 29th 2022

Ukrainian forces have started a long-awaited counteroffensive to regain territory in the south seized by Russian forces since their invasion six months ago, the country’s southern command spokeswoman has said. “Today we started offensive actions in various directions, including in the Kherson region,” Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne cited Natalia Humeniuk as saying. She declined to give details of the counteroffensive, saying Russian forces in southern Ukraine remained “quite powerful”.

Humeniuk also said that Ukraine had struck more than 10 ammunition dumps in the past week, adding they had “unquestionably weakened the enemy”. The governor of Ukraine’s Russian-annexed Crimea Peninsula, Sergei Aksyonov, dismissed her announcement as “another fake of Ukrainian propaganda”. Crimea is adjacent to the Kherson region.

SOURCE = Al Jazeera

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Ukraine confirms counter-offensive in Kherson

August 29th 2022

The Ukrainian military on Monday started a long-awaited counter-offensive against Russian forces in the country’s south, its southern command said on Monday. Command spokesperson Natalia Humeniuk confirmed the offensive in a news briefing and said it included the Kherson region. Ukraine has regularly stated its intention to retake its south, and in particular the city of Kherson, the only regional capital that Russia has been able to capture from Ukraine since it invaded six months ago. The region lies north of the Russian-held Crimean peninsula and has coasts on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Ms Humeniuk said at the briefing that recent strikes on Russia’s southern logistical routes had “unquestionably weakened the enemy”. More than 10 Russian ammunition dumps had been hit over the last weeks.

However, she declined to be drawn into giving more details about the new offensive. Russia’s forces in the south are “rather powerful” and have been built up over a long time, she told the briefing. “The counter-offensive is already ongoing for a while (in the sense of) exhausting the enemy and not giving him an opportunity to advance,” Ms Humeniuk told public broadcaster Suspilne, adding that the offensive phase of this had begun on Monday. Shortly after the announcement, Ukraine’s presidential chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, wrote a cryptic message on Telegram proclaiming “our Kherson is ahead.”

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SOURCE = Sky News

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Ukraine reportedly begins advancing to liberate country’s south

August 29th 2022

Ukraine’s Armed Forces have launched an offensive “in many directions in the south of Ukraine,” Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Operational Command South, said on Aug. 29. Humeniuk said that the situation in the southern direction remains “quite tense, but controlled by Ukrainian forces,” adding that after some “accurate strikes” by Ukrainian forces, Russian troops “do not want to go on the attack and are stationed on their fortified lines,” as quoted by Hromadske. In recent weeks, Ukraine has been very slowly making advances toward the southern city of Kherson, the only regional capital to fall under Russian occupation since the full-scale invasion began on Feb. 24.  The anticipation of a major counteroffensive to liberate the southern region under Russian control has been building since early July, when Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said that President Volodymyr Zelensky had ordered to liberate the occupied south. It was an unusual move for Ukraine’s government to advertise the military’s goals. 

Loud explosions were reported on Aug. 29 in the afternoon in two major southern capitals: Kherson, occupied by Russian troops, and Mykolaiv, under Ukrainian control. Ukraine’s Kakhovka Operational Group also reported on Aug. 29 that the 109th regiment of the Russian-occupied Donetsk Oblast “withdrew from its positions in Kherson Oblast and the Russian paratroopers supporting them fled the battlefield.” The group says that U.S.-provided high-precision HIMARS rocket launchers “have destroyed almost all large bridges,” including the Antonivsky and Novokakhovskyi bridges, leaving only some pedestrian crossings and cutting Russian forces off from the supply of weapons and personnel from the territory of occupied Crimea.

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SOURCE = Kyiv Independent

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Ukraine war: Kyiv launches counter-offensive to retake Kherson, say authorities

August 29th 2022

Ukrainian forces have launched a counter-offensive in the south, aimed at pushing Russian troops back across the Dnipro river and retaking the occupied city of Kherson, local authorities announced on Monday. “Today, there were powerful artillery attacks on enemy positions … throughout the territory of the occupied Kherson region,” local deputy and adviser to the regional governor Sergey Khlan told Ukrainian media outlets. “This is the announcement of what we have been waiting for since spring: it is the beginning of the end of the occupation of the Kherson region,” Khlan added. Ukrainian media had earlier quoted the spokeswoman for the Ukrainian army’s southern command, Natalia Humeniuk, as saying that Kyiv forces were attacking “in many directions” on this front. The Ukrainian military grouping “Kakhovka” stated on Facebook that it observed the retreat of a unit of pro-Russian separatist fighters from their positions in the region. These claims were unverifiable by independent sources.

With the war in Ukraine now in its sixth month, the coming weeks may prove decisive. Ukraine has vowed to drive Russians from the territory they have seized since the start of the invasion, including the southern region of Kherson, while Moscow has pledged to hold on to the occupied areas and take more ground around the country. The Ukrainians have used American-supplied rocket launchers such as HIMARS to strike bridges and military infrastructure in the south, forcing Russia to divert its forces from the Donbas in the east to counter the new threat.  A key bridge near Kherson was destroyed by the Ukrainian army in the lead-up to the counter-offensive, cutting traffic across it and raising potential supply problems for Russian forces in the area. Russia can still use a second crossing on the Dnipro to ferry supplies and reinforcements to its troops in Kherson, which lies just north of the Crimean Peninsula — annexed by Russia in 2014 — but Ukraine’s strikes have shown Russia’s vulnerability and weakened its hold on the region.

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SOURCE = Euro News

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