KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s military said Thursday (Dec. 1) that Russia withdrew troops from the opposite bank of the Dnipro River from the city of Kherson, the first official Ukrainian report of a Russian withdrawal from what is now the main front line in the south.
They gave only limited main points and did not mention the Ukrainian forces that crossed the Dnipro. Ukrainian officials also noted that Russia had stepped up bombing across the river, cutting off electritown in Kherson, where electritown only began to be restored about 3 weeks ago. after Russian troops left the city and fled across the river.
Since Russia abandoned Kherson last month, months after its invasion of Ukraine, the river now bureaucratizes the entire southern stretch of the front.
Russia has already told civilians to leave the city within 15 km of the river and has withdrawn its civilian management of the city of Nova Kakhovka on the river. Ukrainian officials have said in the past that Russia has withdrawn some artillery near the river for safer positions further afield, but has so far refrained from saying Russian forces are abandoning the cities.
“A reduction in the number of Russian infantrymen and military apparatus is observed in the Oleshky agreement,” the army said, referring to the town opposite the town of Kherson, across from a destroyed bridge over the Dnipro.
“Enemy troops have been withdrawn from some settlements in Kherson Oblast and scattered across swaths of forest along the stretch of the Oleshky-Hola Prystan highway,” he said, referring to a 25-kilometer (15-mile) stretch of road through the city’s scattered riverbank. . in the woods on the shore opposite the town of Kherson.
He said most of the Russian troops in the region were recently mobilized reservists, suggesting that Moscow’s best-trained troops had already left.
Reuters can simply independently verify the report.
Separately, Ukraine beefed up security at its diplomatic missions around the world on Thursday after a postal bomb exploded at its embassy in Madrid, one of several planes sent to destinations in Spain, according to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
Ambassador Serhii Pohoreltsev told Ukrainian news site European Pravda that the suspicious package addressed to him opened the door of the building through the commander of the Ukrainian embassy, who was wounded in the blast.
“After opening the box and hearing a click, he threw it away and then heard the explosion,” he said. “Although he was not holding the box at the time of the explosion, the commander injured his hands and suffered a concussion. “
New air raid sirens sounded in Ukraine on Thursday and citizens took refuge in shelters, but there were no immediate reports of primary missile launches and caution was lifted.
Since early October, Russia has also introduced near-weekly missile and drone strikes on Ukraine to cut off its electricity, water and heat, which Kyiv and the West say are aimed at harming civilians, a war crime.
The massive new wave of movements last week cut off heating and electricity for millions of people, and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned Ukrainians to expect a wave soon.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov defended the moves on Thursday, saying Moscow was targeting Ukrainian civilian infrastructure to prevent Kyiv from carrying Western weapons. He did not say how such attacks could achieve this goal.
“We are disabling energy services (in Ukraine) that allow you (the West) to inject lethal weapons into Ukraine to kill Russians,” Lavrov said.
Kyiv said Thursday that recent salvos included failed Russian missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, fired without payload to divert attention from Ukrainian air defenses.
The war in Ukraine is entering a new unrelenting phase with the beginning of the first winter since the Russian invasion on February 24.
After flying south in November, Moscow aimed its firepower at a segment of the eastern front line near the town of Bakhmut, where many infantrymen are believed to be dying day fighting in cold, muddy trenches, yielding little reported gain. in territory on both sides.
The Ukrainian armed forces reported extensive shelling of several frontline villages in the area.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Ukraine passed more than 50 prisoners in the most recent exchange between the two countries. Moscow is expected to publish an issue.
There are no ongoing political talks to end the war, which Russia presented as an “army special operation” saying its goal is to disarm its neighbor and eradicate leaders it calls harmful nationalists. Kyiv and the West call this an imperialist land grab. The war has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and foot soldiers on both sides.
The European Union this week called for a special tribunal to try Russian officials accused of aggression, the war crime of attacking the state without justification.
“As for attempts to identify some kind of court: they will have no legitimacy, they will be accepted through us and we will condemn them,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday in a conference call with reporters.
Ukraine’s nuclear company said it had fired a senior engineer at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant for involvement with Russia, a day after Moscow announced that the engineer, Yuriy Chernichuk, had been promoted to the post of new head of the plant.
In October, Russia said it would take over the plant, which is situated in Russian-run territory along the Dnipro River and still operated by Ukrainian engineers. Kiev says the plant still belongs to Ukraine and that Russia’s takeover is illegal Rappler. com.