A senior Pentagon official said Friday that Ukrainian forces launched a counterattack on the southern city of Kherson, the only major urban center fully occupied by Moscow’s forces, which is now “disputed”.
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“The Ukrainians are trying to take Kherson,” the official, who asked not to be named, told reporters. “We cannot say who controls Kherson, but the fact is that it is no longer under Russian control as firmly as it was before.”
He added that this strategic city, which was captured by Russian forces on March 3, and located at the mouth of the Dnieper River, where demonstrations were violently suppressed, “has again become a disputed area.”
He said that if the Ukrainians could retake the city, the Russian positions around Mykolaiv would find themselves “trapped” between the Ukrainian forces defending Mykolaiv and those in Kherson.
He pointed out that the Russians “will find it very difficult to advance on the field towards Odessa.” “It would be an important development” on the southern front.
The Russian forces of the Ukrainian resistance are also opposed to the fighting in Bucha and Irpin localities, in the northwestern outskirts of Kiev, according to information from the Pentagon.
“We noticed heavy fighting” in this area, he said. “The Ukrainians are trying to drive the Russians out of Bucha and Irpin.”
While the Russian army’s progress on the ground appears to be faltering, its air force is increasing bombing, particularly in the Kyiv region, in Chernihiv (north) and around the breakaway Donbass regions, according to a Pentagon official.
He said the bombings are increasingly destructive as the Russian army’s precision missile stockpile dwindles, noting that Russian forces still possess more than 50% of their missile stockpile.
Russia is also massing Russian forces from separatist territories in Georgia to send them to Ukraine, according to the senior US official.
“We have early indications that they are trying to send reinforcements from Georgia,” he said.
He noted that “we have noticed the movements of a number of soldiers from Georgia, and we do not have a specific number,” adding that he could not give details of when they might arrive at the Ukrainian theater of operations.
After a conflict with Georgia in 2008, Russia unilaterally recognized the independence of two pro-Russian breakaway regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and established military bases there.
