Amid Ukrainian warnings that Moscow is getting ready a brand new wave of strikes on power crops, Russian forces are fortifying their defensive traces in southern Ukraine after retreating from the town of Kherson.
Since being ordered to drag out of Kherson earlier this month, Russian troops have been digging trenches and erecting boundaries towards the opportunity of a brand new Ukrainian offensive east and south of the town, a gateway to the occupied Crimean Peninsula.
However the Kremlin, presumably nonetheless stinging from the bitter setbacks, on Monday dismissed widespread hypothesis that its forces would possibly quickly relinquish one other prize in Ukraine’s south, the nuclear plant in Zaporizhzhia that it seized quickly after invading in February.
“One shouldn’t search for indicators the place there are none and can’t be any,” mentioned a spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin, Dmitri S. Peskov.
The warning from a Ukrainian official that Russia is getting ready to unleash new assaults on power infrastructure got here at the same time as utility crews, toiling in dropping temperatures, have been working to revive energy provides devastated by current bombardments.
Natalia Humeniuk, the spokeswoman for the Ukrainian army’s southern command, mentioned Monday that Ukraine had obtained intelligence reviews suggesting that the brand new strikes would possibly come this week, maybe utilizing missiles launched from a Russian naval vessel within the Black Sea.
President Volodymyr Zelensky instructed Ukrainians that the week forward may as soon as once more show troublesome. “So long as they’ve missiles, they received’t cease,” he mentioned throughout his nightly handle late Sunday.
However Mr. Zelensky mentioned that by working collectively, Ukrainians would overcome “Russia’s try to make use of the chilly towards folks.”
On Monday, a bunch of overseas ministers from seven Baltic and Nordic nations visited Kyiv to debate the menace to Ukraine’s ravaged power infrastructure forward of winter. Representatives from Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Finland and Norway met with Mr. Zelensky within the Ukrainian capital and addressed humanitarian and army assist, sanctions on Russia, and Ukraine’s bid for membership within the European Union.
The warning about new infrastructure assaults got here because the Institute for the Research of Conflict, a analysis group based mostly in Washington, mentioned in a report on Sunday that satellite tv for pc imagery confirmed Russian forces prioritizing digging trenches and erecting so-called dragon’s tooth anti-tank defenses on the east financial institution of the Dnipro River, throughout from Kherson metropolis.
“The Russian defensive positions counsel that the Russian army management views the prospect of a Ukrainian offensive throughout the Dnipro River as a severe menace,” the institute mentioned. The group supplied no prediction on whether or not Ukrainian forces would possibly in truth try such a crossing.
Western army analysts have speculated that quite than try a harmful river crossing close to Kherson, Ukraine’s army would possibly as an alternative try a brand new offensive beginning far upstream, the place it already controls land on the east financial institution of the Dnipro.
Ukraine’s rivers have proved a formidable impediment for either side within the battle, with makes an attempt to cross them typically placing troops in weak positions. Analysts say that any concerted try by Ukrainian forces to cross the Dnipro would most probably contain intensive preparation.
The Ukrainian authorities have declined to offer particulars of army operations within the south because the recapture of Kherson. Ms. Humeniuk, the Ukrainian army spokeswoman, mentioned Monday that an operation to take management of the Kinburn Spit, a peninsula on the mouth of the Dnipro River, was ongoing.
“That is very troublesome work,” she mentioned on nationwide tv, citing the more and more harsh climate situations as winter approaches, in addition to the situation of the peninsula.
Even earlier than Kherson was misplaced, Russia had begun constructing a string of defensive positions within the jap a part of the Kherson area, the Institute for the Research of Conflict report mentioned. By Nov. 15 — 4 days after Ukrainian forces triumphantly swept into the town — satellite tv for pc pictures confirmed trenches and concrete anti-tank defenses, pyramid-shaped concrete blocks positioned in rows, the report mentioned.
It mentioned Russian forces seemed to be to attempting to guard key logistics routes.
As accounts of Russian atrocities in occupied Kherson continued to emerge, officers on the outskirts of Kherson on Monday exhumed a communal grave and located the stays of six Ukrainians. Three had their palms certain by rope, and two had bullet holes in again of the cranium.
And close to Izium, the northeastern metropolis the place lots of of our bodies have been present in a forest, the ex-wife of a Ukrainian author who disappeared in the course of the Russian occupation mentioned Monday that he, too, had been discovered useless. Volodymyr Vakulenko had not been seen since late March, in keeping with the free-expression group PEN America. He and his son, Vitaly, disappeared from their dwelling in Kapytolivka, a village close to Izium, the group mentioned.
Mr. Peskov’s insistence on Monday that Moscow wouldn’t abandon Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear energy plant, appeared to have been prompted by pro-Russian army bloggers who steered that Russian forces would withdraw from the realm. Ukrainian officers additionally mentioned there have been indications that Russia was taking steps to go away the power.
A day earlier, Petro Kotin, the president of the Ukrainian state nuclear power firm, Energoatom, mentioned that there have been indicators that Russian troops have been “packing and stealing no matter they’ll discover” on the Zaporizhzhia advanced, though he emphasised that there was no proof that the troops had truly begun to drag out.
Regardless of the current successes of Ukrainian forces, army analysts mentioned there was no instant indication that they have been threatening Russia’s grip on the plant, which lies on the jap financial institution of the Dnipro River, about 100 miles northeast of Kherson.
The reviews from Russian army bloggers, a hawkish and pro-invasion group — might be an try and “put together the knowledge area for an eventual Russian withdrawal” from Zaporizhzhia, the Institute for the Research of Conflict mentioned in its each day evaluation on Sunday.
Eric Nagourney and Carly Olson contributed reporting.