South of the town of Bakhmut, which has been cited by Russia as a main target in the eastern Donetsk region, Ukraine’s military said Russian forces had been “partially successful” in establishing control over the Semyhirya settlement. , assaulting it from three directions.
“He settled on the outskirts of the settlement,” the evening army report said, referring to the Russian forces.
Defense and intelligence officials from Britain, which has been one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies since the Feb. 24 invasion of Moscow, said Russian forces are struggling to maintain momentum.
Ukraine has used Western-supplied long-range missile systems to severely damage three bridges across the Dnipro in recent weeks, isolating the city of Kherson and, according to the assessment of British defense officials, leaving the 49th Army unit of highly vulnerable Russia on the west bank.
The Ukrainian military said more than 100 Russian soldiers were killed and seven tanks destroyed in the fighting in the south on Friday.
In the Telegram service, the first deputy head of the Kherson regional council, Yuri Sobolevsky, told residents to stay away from Russian ammunition depots, stating: “The Ukrainian army is going against the Russians and this is just the beginning”.
The pro-Ukrainian governor of the Kherson region, Dmytro Butriy, said fighting was continuing in many parts of the region, with the Berislav district, just northwest of the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant, particularly hard hit.
“In some villages, not a single house has been left intact, the entire infrastructure has been destroyed, people live in basements,” he wrote on Telegram.
Just north of Lysychansk, which Moscow forces captured in early July after weeks of fighting, the Ukrainians destroyed a section of rail links near the town of Svatove on Friday night, making it difficult for Moscow to get ammunition to the front, Lugansk Regional Governor Serhiy Gaidai said in an online post.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the battlefield reports.
Officials in the Russian-appointed administration that runs the Kherson region earlier this week rejected Western and Ukrainian assessments of the situation.
In an intelligence report on Saturday, Britain’s Defense Ministry said Russia had probably set up two pontoon tracks and a ferry system to compensate for bridges damaged in Ukrainian attacks.
The authorities installed by Russia in the occupied territories in the south of Ukraine are possibly preparing to hold referendums to join Russia later this year, and “are probably forcing the population to reveal personal details to compose the voting records”, he added.
On Friday, the British ministry described the Russian government as “increasingly desperate”, having lost tens of thousands of soldiers in the war. The head of Britain’s MI6 foreign intelligence agency, Richard Moore, added on Twitter that Russia “is running out of power.”