The war in Ukraine is poised to enter a new phase, British military intelligence chiefs have said this morning.
Russian forces are “almost certainly” massing in the south in preparation for a counteroffensive from Ukrainewarned the Ministry of Defense (MoD) on Saturday.
Long convoys of military trucks, tanks and towed artillery move southwest away from Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, the MoD tweeted in an intelligence update.
“Russia’s war against Ukraine is entering a new phase, with the heaviest fighting moving to an approximately 350 km front line stretching southwest from near Zaporizhzhia to Kherson, parallel to the Dnieper River,” the tweet said.
The battalion’s tactical groups – comprising between 800 and 1,000 soldiers – have been deployed to Crimea and are expected to support Russian troops in Kherson, according to the MoD update.
Equipment is also believed to have been moved from the Russian mainland and areas occupied by Moscow – including Melitopol, Berdiansk and Mariupol – via the Kerch Bridge to Crimea.
Kyiv is increasingly targeting bridges, ammunition depots and rail links in the southern regions.
Key to this strategy is the vital rail link connecting Kherson to Crimea, with a combination of “block, damage, deny, destroy and disrupt” effects to be deployed in the hope of impeding Russia’s ability to logistically supply itself.
The fighting is moving to a front line of about 350 km stretching southwest from near Zaporizhzhia to Kherson, the MoD has said.
The MoD warning comes hours after both Kiev and the Kremlin accused each other of shelling Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia.
The facility was seized by Russian forces in March, but is still operated by Ukrainian technicians.
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Ilyas Verdiev has shared his insight into life in Ukraine since the early days of the war. He is an IT expert in Kiev and lives separately from his wife and two sons who fled to Poland.
Ukraine’s foreign minister warned that the consequences of hitting an operating reactor are “equivalent to the use of a nuclear bomb” – as president Volodymyr Zelenskyy demanded new sanctions against the Russian nuclear industry.
But Russia’s Defense Ministry retaliated by claiming that it was a matter of luck that a radiation leak was avoided.
