‘We will chase them to the border,’ says Zelensky, as Ukraine battles to retake Kherson 


As it attempts to retake occupied Kherson, the Ukrainian military has claimed to have destroyed important Russian control stations, munitions, and stores.

Kherson, a significant port city with access to important commercial, naval, and other sea routes, is just around 60 miles (100 km) from the Russian-occupied Crimea.

A Ukrainian official claims that progress has been achieved in the counteroffensive that the government is waging in the south.

Russian troops are leaving certain locations where Ukraine has begun a counteroffensive, according to a spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern military command on Monday.

The military command declared on Monday that the counteroffensive by Ukrainian forces to recover the Russian-occupied area of Kherson had started.

Also read | IAEA may visit Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine

According to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian forces will be able to drive occupying Russian forces back to pre-2014 lines.

The focus of attention was on any harm Ukraine might have caused to Russian forces around the port city of Kherson, a significant economic centre near the Black Sea that has been a valued possession of Moscow since it began the invasion just over half a year ago.

“The occupiers must know: we will chase them to the border. To our border, which line has not been changed.If they want to survive – it’s time for the Russian military to run away … If they do not hear me – they will have to deal with our defenders, who will not stop until they free everything that belongs to Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address Monday.

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In the Kherson region, “strong explosions persisted throughout the day and night,” according to a dispatch from the Ukrainian presidential office on Tuesday. Practically the entire strategic area is still rife with fierce fights. According to the report, Ukrainian forces have destroyed numerous ammunition storage facilities in the area as well as all substantial bridges over the Dnieper that are necessary for supplying the Russian soldiers.

The Russian state news agency Tass noted five explosions near Kherson on Tuesday morning; these explosions were likely caused by air defence systems.

Operation Command South of the Ukrainian military said that artillery fire was used to attack a dozen command posts in various areas of the Kherson region as well as a pontoon that Russian soldiers were erecting across the Dnieper.

Over the past few months, the war has come to a standstill, with casualties rising and the local population suffering disproportionately as a result of the constant shelling in the east and in the wider region surrounding the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which has also been the focal point of fighting in Ukraine.

Amid fears the plant could be damaged, leading to a radioactive leak, a U.N. nuclear watchdog team has arrived in Kyiv and is further preparing a mission to safeguard the Russian-occupied plant from nuclear catastrophe.

The stakes couldn’t be higher for the International Atomic Energy Agency experts, who will visit the plant in a country where the 1986 Chernobyl disaster spewed radiation throughout the region, shocking the world and intensifying a global push away from nuclear energy.

The Crimean peninsula was acquired by Russia from Ukraine in 2014, sparking a crisis that was dormant until the February 24 invasion. The Kherson area lies just north of that peninsula.

A substantial portion of the annexed peninsula’s fresh water supplies come from the North Crimea Canal, which has its beginnings just to the east of the city.

The city effectively acts as a link between the rest of Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula, which Russia has controlled since 2014.

(With inputs from agencies)

 

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