RUSSIA SIGNALS POSSIBLE KHERSON RETREAT

The city administration building in Kherson, with no Russian flag flying on the flagpole and seemingly no Russian troops present.

Fri 04 November 2022:

Russian forces may withdraw from the west side of the Dnieper river, according to a Moscow-installed official in the Kherson region. However, even as the United States expressed optimism about Ukraine’s capacity to reclaim the strategically significant southern city of Kherson, Kyiv was more cautious.

“Most likely our units, our soldiers, will leave for the left (eastern) bank,” Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-installed deputy civilian administrator of the Kherson region, said in an interview on Thursday with Solovyov Live, a pro-Kremlin online media outlet.

The region comprises Kherson City, the only significant Ukrainian city to have been completely occupied since Russia invaded the ukraine eight months ago. Kherson City is the capital of the region of the same name. Additionally, it consists of a portion of a dam that spans the Dnieper and regulates the water flow used to cultivate Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia captured and then annexed in 2014.

Previously, Russia had denied that its forces intended to leave the region, and any retreat would have been a major setback for them.

The flag’s removal is the first indication that the Russian military may be preparing to abandon the city of Kherson, the only regional capital that Moscow has captured in its eight-month invasion. https://t.co/rStKjiOVLC

— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) November 3, 2022

Senior Kremlin officials reportedly remained silent on the matter on Thursday as pictures of significant buildings with Russian flags down went viral on social media.

Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern military command, said talk of a retreat could be a Russian trap and the photos – shared on pro-Kremlin Telegram accounts – misinformation.

“This could be a manifestation of a particular provocation in order to create the impression that the settlements are abandoned, that it is safe to enter them, while they are preparing for street battles,” she said in televised comments.

Russia has been fighting for months to hang on to the pocket of land it holds on the west bank at the mouth of the Dnieper River that bisects Ukraine.

Since the beginning of October, Ukraine has been making progress, targeting the main bridges over the river and making it challenging for Russia to continue supplying its troops on the west bank.

While addressing at the Pentagon on Thursday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin avoided a question about whether Russian forces were getting ready to leave but did express confidence in Ukraine’s capacity to beat back them back.

A Western official, speaking to the Reuters news agency on condition of anonymity, assessed Russia was planning to retreat to the east of the river so it could better defend its forces.

Writing on Twitter, Michael Kofman, director of Russia Studies at the Center for Naval Analyses in Washington, DC, who has recently returned from areas near the Kherson front, said Moscow’s intentions were unclear and fighting in Kherson was “difficult”.

He doubted Russia would abandon the west bank of the river “without being forcibly pressed out”, but he also “could be wrong about this”.

“The situation in Kherson is clear as mud,” Kofman wrote.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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