Oct. 24 (UPI) — Russian forces are prepared to defend the city of Kherson despite steady advances Ukrainian troops have made in reclaiming the region, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said Monday.
Budanov, in an interview with Ukrainian news website Ukrayinska Pravda, said that Russian troops are not fleeing from Kherson and are waging “crazy information campaign” about the situation in the region.
“They create the illusion that everything is gone. And at the same time, on the contrary, they bring new military units there and prepare the streets of the city for defense,” Budanov said.
“They understand that if we take at least control over the Kakhov dam, which is the only transport artery that is fully functioning now, they will have to make a decision very quickly.”
He said that if Ukrainian troops take control of the dam, Russian troops would be placed into a “very similar situation” that Ukrainian troops were in during the siege at Mariupol earlier this year.
A lengthy assault made headlines as civilians were trapped with soldiers on the Azovstal steel plant.
“They are preparing the groundwork so that, if necessary, they can get out of there very quickly,” Budanov said. “However, they are not preparing to exit now, they are preparing to defend.”
Budanov said that Russian troops cannot risk destroying the dam to prevent Ukraine from reclaiming it because it would flood the left bank of the Kherson region.
“They will lose, even theoretically, the possibility of supplying water to the North Crimean Canal, to Crimea, until we rebuild the dam, and that will take a very long time. It will be impossible to do,” he said.
He added that destroying the dam would also damage Russia’s objectives with the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant because they are “inextricably linked.”
Despite the comments by Budanov, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has reported that Russian forces completely abandoned their positions in the cities of Charivne and Chkalove in the Kherson region.
The British Defense Ministry, which has provided daily intelligence updates since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, said Sunday that Russian forces continue to reinforce crossing points over the Dnipro River and have completed a barge bridge alongside the damaged Antonovskiy bridge in Kherson.
“Although the use of heavy barge bridges was almost certainly included in Soviet-era planning for operations in Europe, it is likely this is the first time the Russian military have needed to utilize this type of bridge for decades,” the British Defense Ministry said.
“Using civilian barges likely provides Russia additional material and logistics benefits, having lost significant quantities of military bridging equipment and engineering personnel during its invasion.”
The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank based in Washington, D.C., said in a recent analysis that the new bridge could become “a critical crossing point for Russian forces as Ukrainian forces advance toward Kherson” and that a large part of the city’s population has already reportedly fled in anticipation of the urban fighting.
