WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
A Russian-installed official in southern Ukraine said Moscow will likely pull its troops from the west bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson and also urged civilians to leave, perhaps signalling a retreat that would be a blow to Russia's war.
There was silence from senior officials in Moscow. The Kyiv government and Western military analysts remained cautious, suggesting Russia could be setting a trap for advancing Ukrainian troops.
"Most likely our units, our soldiers, will leave for the left (eastern) bank," Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-installed deputy civilian administrator of the Kherson region, said in an interview on Thursday with Solovyov Live, a pro-Kremlin online media outlet.
The area includes Kherson city, capital of the region of the same name, and the only major city Russia has captured intact since its invasion in February. It also includes one side of a dam across the Dnipro which controls the water supply to irrigate Crimea, the peninsula Russia has occupied since 2014.
Previously, Russia had denied its forces were planning to withdraw from the area.
In lengthy comments on Thursday night on a programme organised by RT television, Stremousov was somewhat more equivocal, saying "we have to take some very difficult decisions now. Whatever our strategy might be. And some people might be afraid to recognise things.
"But for me it is very important to try to say at the moment - People, please go over to the east bank. You will be in a far safer position," Stremousov said.
At another point, Stremousov said he hoped "that we will not leave Kherson" and if that were to happen, "it will be a big blow not only in terms of the image of us all, but a big blow for people who could stay here."
Speculation swirled over whether Russia was indeed pulling out, after photos circulated on the internet showing the main administrative building in Kherson city with Russia's flag no longer flying atop it. Ukraine said those images could be Russian disinformation.
Natalia Humeniuk, spokesperson for Ukraine's southern military command, said it could be a Russian trap.
"This could be a manifestation of a particular provocation, in order to create the impression that the settlements are abandoned, that it is safe to enter them, while they are preparing for street battles," she said in televised comments.
MORE ATTACKS, POWER CUTS
Over the past 24 hours, Russian forces have launched three missile and 16 air strikes on Ukrainian targets as well as more than 40 shelling episodes, the Ukrainian military said in a statement on Thursday night.
On the southern front, Russian fire hit more than 35 towns and there were more than 30 reconnaissance missions by drones, the statement said.
Ukrainian aircraft made 12 strikes on eight Russian-occupied areas where men and equipment were concentrated, hitting four anti-aircraft units, the military said. Ukrainian artillery also struck three areas with men and equipment and two ammunition depots, it said.
Reuters was not able to verify battlefield reports.
A Ukrainian foreign ministry statement on Thursday night accused the Russian authorities of carrying out "mass forced movement of residents" in Kherson and Zaporzhzhia provinces in the south and Luhansk and Donetsk regions in the east "to the territory of temporarily occupied Crimea or to the Russian Federation."
Ukraine has accused Russian forces of war crimes during the eight-month-long war, charges that Moscow rejects. Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians, though the conflict has killed thousands, displaced millions and destroyed cities and towns.
Its attacks in the past few weeks on Ukrainian energy and water supplies have hit civilians hard as winter approaches, the Kyiv government says. As of Thursday night, 4.5 million Ukrainians in the capital Kyiv and 10 other regions were temporarily without power, the latest outages caused by Russian attacks, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address.
Temperatures can fall far below zero degrees Celsius in winter, now just weeks away.
COUNTER-OFFENSIVE
U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said he believed Ukrainian forces could retake Kherson, in perhaps his most optimistic comments on the counter-offensive to date.
Russia has fought for months to hang on to the pocket of land it holds on the west bank at the mouth of the Dnipro River that bisects Ukraine.
Ukraine has attacked the main river crossings for months, making it difficult for Russia to supply its force on the west bank. Ukrainian troops have been advancing along the river since the start of October, although their advance had slowed in recent days.
Ukrainian troops on the front line last week, visited by Reuters, said they saw no evidence Russian forces were withdrawing and believed they were in fact reinforcing.
Michael Kofman, a U.S. expert on the Russian military who has just returned from the Ukrainian side of the Kherson front, said Moscow's intentions were unclear. He doubted Russia would abandon the west bank of the river "without being forcibly pressed out", but he also "could be wrong about this".
"The situation in Kherson is clear as mud," tweeted Kofman, director of Russia studies at the Center for Naval Analyses.
RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Proof of the UK’s alleged involvement in a recent drone attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet will become public within hours, Russia’s ambassador to London, Andrey Kelin, said on Thursday.
In an interview with Sky News, Kelin claimed that Moscow knows “about the participation of British specialists in training, preparation and execution of plans against the Russian infrastructure and the Russian fleet in Black Sea.”
He also said that the “detailed” information about the attack, the main responsibility for which Moscow lays on Kiev, had been passed to Britain.
When pressed by the reporter to publicly reveal evidence supporting Moscow’s claims, Kelin said that “it will become public pretty soon, perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow.”
“It can bring us to the line of – I would not say ‘no return’, return is always possible... But, anyway, we should avoid escalation, and this is a warning actually that Britain is too deep in this conflict,” Kelin emphasized.
In his opinion, the situation is becoming “more and more dangerous.”
Kelin’s remarks came just a few hours after the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the British Ambassador to Moscow, Deborah Bronnert, over the UK’s supposed link to the attack in Crimea. According to the ministry’s statement, Bronnert was warned that London’s hostile actions “could lead to unpredictable and dangerous consequences.”
The Russian Defense Ministry earlier claimed that British instructors had led the training of the Ukrainian troops who carried out the aerial and seaborne drone attacks on Russian ships at the Sevastopol naval base in Crimea on Saturday. A minesweeper was damaged in the raid. The British Defense Ministry denied the allegations.
*As many as 107 Russian service members returned from Kiev-controlled territory as a result of negotiations, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
"As many as 107 Russian service members, who had been facing mortal danger in captivity, returned from Kiev-controlled territory on November 3 as a result of negotiations," the statement reads.
According to the Defense Ministry, a Russian Aerospace Forces’ aircraft will bring the released troops to Moscow for treatment and rehabilitation at the ministry’s medical facilities. "All those released are receiving the necessary medical and psychological assistance," the ministry added.
The last prisoner swap took place on October 29, when, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, 50 Russian troops returned from areas controlled by the Kiev regime. On October 17, 110 Russian nationals returned home, including 72 crew members of civilian ships that had been held by the Kiev regime since February.
Reuters
