Today, Wednesday, the Russian military operation in Ukraine is experiencing a new day, as … Units of the Russian army are trying to establish control On the Ukrainian regions it affects the positions of the forces of Kiev, while the latter continues to try to advance and restore its territory With the financial and military support of the West.
In the latest developments, pro-Russian forces in Zaporizhia announced that Ukraine was amassing its forces to launch an attack on the city, while warnings of air strikes in Kiev, Odessa and Mykolaiv were issued in Ukraine. The correspondent of “Al-Arabiya” and “Al-Hadath” reported that the number of Ukrainian regions where sirens were sounded this morning had risen to 12.
A senior Ukrainian official expected his country and Russia to fight “the fiercest battles” in the strategic southern Kherson region, which he said. Moscow controls a part of itHe said the Russian army is preparing to face the advance of the Ukrainian forces.
Kherson, the capital of the region that bears his name and which had a pre-war population of around 280,000, is the largest urban center Russia has preserved since its capture at the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine eight months ago.
Ukrainian forces have apparently not regained much territory in their counter-offensive in Kherson since early October, when Russia annexed the province and three other regions, a move denounced by 143 nations at the United Nations as an “illegal annexation attempt”.
“Everything is clear about Kherson. The Russians are strengthening their ranks there … This means that no one is preparing to retreat. On the contrary, Kherson will witness the fiercest battles”, Oleksiy Aristovich, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, he said in an online video clip Tuesday night. ‘, without specifying a date for the battle.
Of the four regions annexed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kherson is arguably the most strategically important. It controls both the only land route to Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014, and the vast estuary of the Dnipro River that divides Ukraine in two.
For weeks, officials from the Russian-backed Kherson administration have been broadcasting warnings that Ukrainian forces were about to attack the city and evacuated thousands of civilians by boat to the east bank of the Dnipro River.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said at a conference on the reconstruction of Ukraine, Russian missiles and Iranian-made drones have destroyed more than a third of the country’s energy sector.
Zelensky called on the international community to make financial efforts to cover his country’s projected budget deficit of $ 38 billion next year due to the war.
And on Tuesday, fierce Russian bombing targeted the city of Bakhmut in the Donbass region, where there was smoke from fierce battles between the Moscow forces and the Ukrainian army, which is trying to repel them.
After being driven out of Kiev at the start of the military operation and from the Kharkiv region in the north-east, Russian forces aimed to conquer the territory of Donbass, the industrial region to the east.
Donetsk, the eastern region that includes Bakhmut, is one of the four Ukrainian regions declared annexed by the Russian president and the application of martial law.
However, Ukrainian forces have largely been able to repel Moscow’s advance towards Bakhmut, while in the Kherson region it is approaching its main cities.
