Russian presence in the south is complicated by Ukrainian attacks on supply lines, officials say
A picture taken on July 21, 2022 shows craters on Kherson’s Antonovsky (Antonivskiy) Bridge, which crosses the Dnipro River, caused by a Ukrainian rocket attack, amid ongoing Russian military action in Ukraine. (Photo by STRINGER/AFP via Getty Images)
Ukrainian officials said Russia’s presence in the southern Kherson region and parts of Zaporizhia is increasingly tenuous as supply lines are daily targeted by long-range Ukrainian systems, many of them supplied by allies. Westerners.
Ivan Fedorov, mayor of the occupied city of Melitopol, said the destruction of a railway bridge southwest of the city over the weekend had further complicated Russian resupply routes.
Fedorov stated on Ukrainian television that “the enemy uses Melitopol as a logistics center for the transportation and transshipment of ammunition and heavy weapons. The enemy transports most of the ammunition by rail. On the night of August 13-14, a railway bridge. The enemy cannot restore it yet; the rubble is being dismantled.”
Fedorov, who is not in Melitopol, also said: “We see the migration of military personnel from Kherson to Melitopol. Military personnel take their families from Melitopol.”
He said that the Russians had tightened security in Melitopol, which is in the Zaporizhzhia region, by controlling the local population. “The mass filtering of local civilians continues in Melitopol, in people’s houses, in the streets,” he said.
Fedorov added that the Russian security service (FSB), Russian reserve guards and Chechen special units were present in Melitopol.
He said up to 6,000 people were waiting in line to be evacuated.
“People wait for five to seven days, spend the night on the roadsides. It is faster to go through Crimea, people also use this route,” he said.
Meanwhile, Serhii Khlan, adviser to the head of the Kherson Civilian Military Administration, told Ukrainian television on Monday that continued attacks by Ukrainian forces on bridges across the Dnipro River had caused serious difficulties for Russian forces.
“The impossibility of (the Russians) supplying ammunition allows us to say that if they cannot solve the question of the crossing to the right bank of the Dnipro in the next two weeks, then they will have no other opportunity but to abandon their positions.”
A significant part of the Russian occupation force is located on the right (north) bank of the Dnipro, in the city of Kherson and further upstream.
Khlan claimed that the Russians had moved their command headquarters to the south bank of the Dnipro.
The South Operational Command said on Sunday that the main road connection, the Antonivskyi Bridge, had been attacked once more. A video on social media showed a series of explosions at one end of the bridge, which links southern Kherson with the regional capital.
Khlan said Ukrainian civilians continue to leave Kherson, although travel has become more difficult.
He stated that 40% of Ukrainians trying to pass through the only official transit point into Ukrainian-controlled territory (at Vasylivka) are residents of the Kherson region. “Every day, between 700 and 2,000 people leave the occupied territories,” she said.
