Ukraine says scores of Russians killed, rail links cut in southern fighting

KYIV: The Ukrainian military said it had killed scores of Russian soldiers in fighting in the south, including the Kherson region that is the focus of Kyiv’s counter-offensive in that part of the country and a key link in Moscow’s supply lines.

Rail traffic to Kherson over the Dnipro River had been cut, the military’s southern command said, potentially further isolating Russian forces west of the river from supplies in occupied Crimea and the east.

South of the town of Bakhmut, which has been cited by Russia as a prime target in the eastern region of Donetsk, the Ukrainian military said Russian forces had been “partially successful” in establishing control over the settlement of Semyhirya by storming it from three directions.

“He established himself on the outskirts of the settlement,” the military’s evening report said, referring to Russian forces.

Defence and intelligence officials from Britain, which has been one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies since Moscow launched its invasion on February 24, portrayed Russian forces as struggling to maintain momentum.

Ukraine has used Western-supplied long-range missile systems to badly damage three bridges across the Dnipro in recent weeks, cutting off Kherson city and – in the assessment of British defence officials – leaving Russia’s 49th Army highly vulnerable on the river’s west bank.

Ukraine’s military said more than 100 Russian soldiers had been killed and seven tanks destroyed in fighting in the south on Friday.

Writing on Telegram, the first deputy head of the Kherson regional council, Yuri Sobolevsky, told residents to stay away from Russian ammunition dumps, saying: “The Ukrainian army is pouring it on against the Russians and this is only the beginning.”

The Kherson region’s pro-Ukrainian governor, Dmytro Butriy, said fighting was continuing in many parts of the region, and that Berislav district, just northwest of the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant, was particularly hard hit.

Just to the north of Lysychansk, which Moscow’s forces captured in early July after weeks of fighting, Ukrainian partisans destroyed a railway junction box near the Russian-controlled town of Svatove on Friday night, making it harder for Moscow to bring in ammunition to the front lines by train, Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said.

Officials from the Russian-appointed administration running the Kherson region earlier this week rejected Western and Ukrainian assessments of the situation.

In an intelligence update, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said Russia had likely established two pontoon bridges and a ferry system to compensate for bridges damaged in Ukrainian strikes.

Russian-installed authorities in occupied territories in southern Ukraine were possibly preparing to hold referendums on joining Russia later this year, and were “likely coercing the population into disclosing personal details in order to compose voting registers,” it added. read more

On Friday the British ministry described the Russian government as “growing desperate”, having lost tens of thousands of soldiers in the war. The chief of Britain’s MI6 foreign intelligence agency, Richard Moore, added on Twitter that Russia is “running out of steam”.