The battle for Kherson may be approaching as Russia claims to “evacuate” the civilian population.
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For several months, Ukraine has fought to stop Russian reinforcements in Cherson. The battle for the city may now be fast approaching.
– Nobody will give up on Kherson, the military will fight to the death, says Vladimir Saldo, Putin’s installed leader in the region, on Russian TV according to Moscow times.
However, military analyst Konrad Muzyka believes that the Ukrainians in the battle for Kherson will use tactics that were successful at the beginning of the war.
– I think Ukraine is trying to create the conditions that will force the Russians to leave. Something they have done in Kharkiv and Lyman says of the strategy of “limiting” supplies.
Lyman was first surrounded before the Russians withdrew.
According to the think tank The Institute for the Study of War, Russia plans the information strategy to explain the withdrawal and loss of territories in Kherson County. They write it in their latest update.
Putin’s puppet Saldo said Wednesday that some 60,000 people will be “evacuated” from Kherson to the Crimean peninsula and other Russian border areas.
However, Ukraine asks local residents to ignore evacuation calls. Ukraine accuses Russia of trying to panic people to leave the region.
Kherson residents received text messages Wednesday morning from the pro-Russian leadership urging them to evacuate and warned that Ukraine would attack residential areas.
– The strengths will remain
On Wednesday, Vladimir Saldo said the entire city administration had been evacuated, NTB writes.
“The whole administration is moving to the left bank of the Dnipro River today,” he told Russian state television.
According to him, the evacuation is underway because the administration is taking its precautions, while the Russian forces remain in the city.
The head of the Kherson regional administration says, according to the BBC, that Russia’s goal is to take civilians hostage and use them as human shields. According to the BBC, the deportation of civilians by an occupier to an occupied territory is considered a war crime.
Russian President Vladimir Putin introduced Martial law in the four regions on Wednesday Russia attached Annexation means trying to conquer a territory and claim it as one’s ownin the month of September. Martial law means that they replace a civilian government with a military one, which, according to Tom Røseth of the Norwegian Defense Academy, could mean that more people could be forced into the war on the Russian side.
On Wednesday, Russian TV showed images of large crowds of people gathered west of the Dnipro River.
Serhiy Khlan, adviser to the Ukrainian leader in the Kherson region, compares evacuations to deportations during the Soviet era.
However, he believes this could be a cover for something bigger: a full military evacuation of military forces west of the river.
– I foresee a withdrawal of forces, he tells the BBC.
He believes that Russian forces will try to destroy the city of Kherson after leaving it, a city that, according to Putin, now belongs to Russia.
