If this information is correct, it would be very bad news for kyiv.
Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed another military success in the southern Kherson region on Tuesday, days after the “chaotic flight” of Ukrainian forces from Avdiivka.
Last November, the Ukrainian army managed with great difficulty to form a bridgehead on the Russian-occupied bank of the Dnieper near the city of Kherson.
It was one of the meager Ukrainian successes of the failed counter-offensive launched last spring.
Since the conquest of this bridgehead, Moscow had been trying to push the Ukrainians back across the river.
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“Krynky has been cleaned, we de facto control the entire bank,” Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday, after the Russian head of state asked him, following images broadcast by the media Russians and an officer's report, to confirm that this bridgehead had been conquered.
“This is indeed the case,” assured the minister.
However, the information had not been confirmed by kyiv on Tuesday evening.
Bad luck for kyiv
The announcement comes shortly after Russia captured Avdiivka, a town in eastern Ukraine, after months of fighting.
If Ukraine claimed to have ordered its troops to withdraw from the ruined city to “save lives”, Vladimir Putin described a “chaotic flight”.
“It took place at the moment when the command of the Ukrainian army gave the order to withdraw to its forces which were already on the move and leaving the locality,” quipped the master of the Kremlin.
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The Russian president considered that this order to withdraw had been given “for political reasons, in order to conceal this movement and give it the appearance of an organized withdrawal”.
“It was actually a literal leak,” he added.
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Sergei Shoigu said on Saturday that the Ukrainian retreat took place “under continuous fire from Russian troops” and kyiv for its part admitted that several of its soldiers were taken prisoner, accusing the Russian army of having executed six of them. .
According to the Russian minister, the Ukrainian forces “left a lot of prisoners and wounded, a lot of weapons” and military vehicles.
" A great success "
He considered that the capture of Avdiivka, which had been transformed into a fortified place by Ukrainian forces, with “undergrounds for movement”, was “a great success” for Moscow.
According to Sergei Shoigu, the soldiers who fought there are “resting and preparing for new battles”, the Russian army continuing its offensive on several sectors of the front.
Vladimir Putin hailed a “success” at Avdiivka and called for it to be “developed”, with Ukrainian forces facing ammunition shortages due to the blocking of new US aid by supporters of former US President Donald Trump in Congress.