New Delhi: Russian forces are preparing for the “heaviest of battles” in Ukrain’s strategic southern region of Kherson, said a senior Ukrainian official as the Kremlin prepares to defend the largest city under its control from Ukraine’s counter-offensive, reported news agency Reuters.
In the recent weeks, Russian troops in the region were driven back and were at the risk of being trapped against the west bank of the Dnipro river, where the provincial capital of Kherson has been in Russian hands since the early days of the invasion of Ukraine eight months ago.
While the Russian-installed authorities are evacuating residents to the east bank, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Oleksiy Arestovych said that there was no sign that Russian forces were preparing to abandon the city.
"With Kherson everything is clear. The Russians are replenishing, strengthening their grouping there," Arestovych said in an online video late on Tuesday, stated the Reuters report.
"It means that nobody is preparing to withdraw. On the contrary, the heaviest of battles is going to take place for Kherson,” Arestovych added.
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Of the four provinces Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed to have annexed in September, Kherson is arguably the most strategically important. It controls both the only land route to the Crimea peninsula Russia seized in 2014 and the mouth of the Dnipro, the vast river that bisects Ukraine, stated the Reuters report.
Yuri Sobolevsky, a member of the ousted pro-Ukrainian Kherson regional council, said the Russia-installed authorities were putting increasing pressure on Kherson residents to leave.
"Search and filtration procedures are intensifying as are searches of cars and homes," he wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Meanwhile, the Indian High Commission in Kyiv has advised Indians living in Ukraine to leave the country immediately by available means.