Military experts expect Kiev’s offensive on the city of Kherson as early as next week. The Ukrainian authorities take a somewhat different view of the urgent calls for evacuation by the Russian occupying forces: collaborators and traitors in particular are now forced to flee.
Western military experts reckon that Ukrainian troops could break through to the Dnipro River in Kherson as early as next week. This was reported by the “Financial Times” without naming the sources. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that he had “outlined steps for the further liberation of the Ukrainian territories” with his country’s military leadership.
Under increasing pressure from the Ukrainian counter-offensives, the Russian occupiers in the southern Cherson region called on civilians to flee. For their own safety, people are recommended to travel to Russia, Moscow-appointed head of administration Kirill Stremoussow wrote on Telegram. The day before, the head of administration appointed by Russia, Vladimir Saldo, had called on the population to flee to Russia and asked Moscow to help with the “evacuation”. Stremoussov had caused confusion and contradicted his superior’s order, adding that the Russian troops would not withdraw.
A representative of the Ukrainian regional council said that one should not talk like the occupiers of evacuation unless it concerns collaborators with Russia. “This ‘evacuation’ announced by Saldo is an evacuation for collaborators and traitors in the region… They want to bring these collaborators to Russia,” said Serhiy Khlan, adding: “The occupiers understand that they cannot last long. ” This primarily affects the right bank of the Dnipro and the city of Kherson.
The residents of the Kherson region are said to be taken to the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia and to the southern Russian regions of Rostov, Krasnodar and Stavropol. The Cherson region in southern Ukraine, which Russia has declared annexed, has been the target of a counter-offensive by the Ukrainian army for several weeks.
Along with Zaporizhia, Luhansk and Donetsk, Cherson is one of the four Ukrainian regions that Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin had illegally annexed at the end of September. According to observers, seven and a half months after the start of the war, the Ukrainian army could be on the verge of its next major success there. In the past few weeks, Kyiv has repeatedly reported that the first towns in Cherson have been recaptured.
