According to him, the efforts of the Ukrainian armed forces are currently concentrated they surround the city, isolating parts of the occupying army.
“Most likely, the operation to free Kherson will continue until the end of next month … This is exactly what we are trying to do. But externally they resist. They are trying to stop us from moving forward and you have to understand that the fighting continues every day.“, – He said.
The GUR chief agreed with The Drive correspondent’s view that the battles for Kherson were “bloody.” The Ukrainian armed forces are doing everything possible, but the unemployment of the regional center, according to Budanov, “will not do without a struggle”.
At the same time, he noted that in the captured Kherson, the enemy had gathered the most trained and combat-ready units at the time. According to preliminary intelligence estimates, the grouping of the Russian army in the southern direction today numbers about 40 thousand people.
These are airborne troops, special forces and marines. To strengthen them, the mobilized people are also sent to the Kherson region, Budanov said.
“The combat component, that is the units that can represent a danger to us, is about 40 thousand. Kherson is in the middle of this grouping. It is also troops in Kherson, in the areas of the western bank of the Dnieper as troops deployed on the Eastern shore “, explained the intelligence chief.
Russian occupiers entered the territory of the Kherson region on February 24 from the temporarily occupied Crimean peninsula.
Liberation of the president of Kherson Volodymyr Zelensky called the key target APU to the south.
August 29 APU launched an offensive also in the Kherson region. According to official figures, the Ukrainian army was released in the region on 24 October more than 90 settlements.
October 18 Surovik announced a “difficult military-tactical situation” in the southern part of the front, and representatives of the occupying “administration of the Kherson region” invited the local population evacuate.
The Kherson Regional Council declared that the Russian occupiers started running away from Kherson. However, the head of the main intelligence directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Kirill Budanov, said that in reality the occupiers were conducting an intelligence operation, while they themselves prepare the city for defense.
On 25 October, the military staff of Ukraine reported that the invaders set up defensive positions on the left bank of the Dnieper in the Kherson region, military personnel among the mobilized citizens are transferred to the village of Lvovo.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said in an interview with Fox News, which was released on October 25, that due to worsening weather conditions the advance of the Ukrainian armed forces in the south has slowed down.
Armed Forces of Ukraine in the South play an active defensebut do not lose territory, announced the Deputy Minister of Defense Anna on 26 October
