Russian and Ukrainian troops appeared Friday to be girding for a major battle over the strategic southern industrial port city of Kherson, in a region which Russian President Vladimir Putin has illegally annexed and subjected to martial law.
Fighting and evacuations were reported in the Kherson region as Moscow tried to pound the invaded country into submission with more missile and drone attacks on critical infrastructure.
Putin declared martial law in the Kherson, Luhansk, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions on Wednesday in an attempt to assert Russian authority in the annexed areas as he faced battlefield setbacks, a troubled troop mobilization, increasing criticism at home and abroad, and international sanctions.
The unsettled status of the illegally absorbed territory was especially visible in the Kherson region’s capital, where Russian military officials have replaced Kremlin-installed civilian leaders as part of martial law that took effect Thursday to defend against a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Kherson city, with a prewar population of about 284,000, was one of the first urban areas Russia captured when it invaded Ukraine, and it remains the largest city it holds. It is a prime target for both sides because of its key industries and major river port. Reports of sabotage and assassinations of Russian-installed officials in Kherson have surfaced for months, in what appeared to be one of the most active Ukrainian resistance movements in occupied territory.
Russian-installed officials have urged residents to evacuate for their safety and to allow the military to build fortifications. Officials said 15,000 residents of an expected 60,000 had been relocated from the city and surrounding areas as of Thursday.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office said Thursday that Ukrainian forces mounted 15 attacks on Russian military strongholds in the Kherson region. For its part, Russia’s Defense Ministry spokesman said the Kremlin’s forces repelled Ukrainian attempts to advance with tanks on the Kherson villages of Sukhanove, Nova Kamianka and Chervonyi Yar.
A Russian-installed official in the region, Vladimir Leontyev, said Thursday Ukrainian forces had launched five missile strikes against the Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power station about 70 kms (44 miles) from Kherson city. He said on Russian TV that if the facilities were destroyed, a critical canal providing water to annexed Crimea would be cut off.
Zelenskyy countered that the Russians have mined the dam and power station, with plans to blow them up in what he called a terrorism act to unleash 18 million cubic meters (4.8 billion gallons) and flood Kherson and dozens of areas where hundreds of thousands of people live. He told the European Council Russia would then blame Ukraine.
None of the claims could be independently verified.
Russia’s new military commander in Ukraine this week acknowledged the threat posed by Ukraine’s counteroffensive to Kherson, and Britain’s Defense Ministry interpreted that Thursday to mean, “Russian authorities are seriously considering a major withdrawal of their forces from the area west of the Dnieper River.”
Putin tried Thursday to address another problem area, the partial mobilization of reservists he ordered last month and estimated it would end by the end of this month by reaching its 300,000-man target. He visited a training center in the Russian region of Ryazan to show progress in rectifying problems with training and supplies for newly mobilized troops. Russian TV showed him lying under a net on a field, wearing goggles and ear protection, and shooting a rifle. A military officer showed Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu soldiers wearing bulletproof vests and helmets, with weapons. The officer displayed winter boots, clothes, cooking utensils and other supplies — all to counter images Russians have posted on social media of shabby or non-existent gear for newly mobilized troops.
In another sign of Russia’s wavering mobilization, Ukrainian authorities said more than 3,000 Russians have called a hotline for soldiers who don’t want to take part in the war and are asking to surrender.
—Russian forces attacked Ukrainian positions near Bilohorivka, a village in eastern Ukraine's Luhansk region. In the neighboring Donetsk region, fighting raged near the city of Bakhmut. Kremlin-backed separatists have controlled parts of both regions for 8½ years.
—Russia continued attacking energy infrastructure, dispatching drones and missiles to eight regions, prompting authorities to ask residents to reduce energy consumption from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and to dim city street lights. They warned of rolling blackouts continuing Friday. In Kryvyi Rih, Russian strikes damaged a power plant and another energy facility, cutting electricity to the central Ukraine city of about 600,000 residents. Kryvyi Rih is home to metallurgical factories key to Ukraine's economy. Gov. Valentin Reznichenko said the city sustained serious damage.
—Ukrainian authorities said missile and drone strikes started fires in the southern city of Mykolaiv, with four drones hitting a school. Another school in Komyshuvakha, a village in Zaporizhzhia, also took four drone strikes.
—The Ukrainian army's general staff reported a heightened chance that Russian forces could attack from Belarus to cut supply routes for Western weapons and equipment. Oleksei Hromov, a general staff official, said Russia was deploying aircraft and troops in Belarus.
—The White House said Iranian troops are “directly engaged on the ground” in Crimea supporting Russian drone attacks, troubling evidence of Tehran’s deepening role assisting Russia as it exacts suffering on Ukrainian civilians just as the cold weather sets in.
—Despite the Kremlin's — and Iran's — claims to the contrary, a leading Russian military expert unwittingly acknowledged that Iran has supplied Russia with weaponized drones it uses in Ukraine. Ruslan Pukhov, head of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a Moscow-based think tank, asked journalists before a TV interview not to question him about where the drones came from, unaware that he was live on air. “We all know that they are Iranian-made, but authorities haven’t acknowledged that,” Pukhov said.
—The EU on Thursday imposed sanctions on Iran’s Shahed Aviation Industries, as well as three Iranian armed forces generals, for undermining Ukraine’s territorial integrity by helping to supply Russia with drones.
Meanwhile, European Union (EU) leaders are gathering Friday to take stock of their support for Ukraine after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Russia is trying to spark a refugee exodus by destroying his war-ravaged country’s energy infrastructure.
Nearly eight months into the war, Russia is increasingly targeting Ukraine’s power stations, waterworks and other key infrastructure with missile and drone strikes. Meanwhile, the EU is struggling with the fallout of having to urgently wean itself off Russian gas and oil as the war fuels price hikes and market nervousness.
In a speech via video link to European leaders in Brussels on Thursday, Zelenskyy said that “attacks by Russian cruise missiles and Iranian combat drones have destroyed more than a third of our energy infrastructure. Because of this, unfortunately we are no longer able to export electricity to help you maintain stability.”
“Russia also provokes a new wave of migration of Ukrainians to EU countries,” by attacking electricity and heating sources “so that as many Ukrainians as possible move to your countries.” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has branded Russia's attacks on civilian infrastructure as “war crimes” and “acts of pure terror.”
More than 4.3 million Ukrainian citizens have registered for temporary protection in the EU. Almost a third of them are being hosted in Poland alone.
In a draft of an EU summit statement, the leaders affirm that they “will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes” with continued political, military and economic support.
They also say that the 27-nation bloc will “step up its humanitarian response, in particular for winter preparedness.” The draft text, seen by the Associated Press, is expected to be adopted later Friday but its precise wording could still change.
The EU is deeply divided over how to handle the arrival of migrants without authorization — the issue lies at the heart of one of the bloc’s biggest ever political crises — but many countries, particularly in central and eastern Europe, have set aside their objections to massively welcome in war refugees from Ukraine.
AFP adds from Kyiv: President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday that Russian attacks on Ukraine's energy facilities had rendered the country's power grid a "battlefield", spurring a new wave of Ukrainians fleeing to Europe.
"Russia's leadership has given the order to turn the energy system itself into a battlefield. The consequences of this are very dangerous, again for all of us in Europe," Zelensky said in an address to the EU council.
Energy-saving measures are being put in place across Ukraine after Russian missile and drone strikes destroyed more than 30 percent of the country's power stations in a week.
"Russia is provoking a new wave of migration of Ukrainians to EU countries," Zelensky added.
He said that Russian strikes on Ukraine's energy facilities were "aimed at creating as many electricity and heat problems as possible for Ukraine this fall and winter and for as many Ukrainians as possible to go to your countries."
As a response to the attacks, the Ukrainian leader called for European countries to supply Kyiv's military with more and sophisticated air defences and hit Moscow with more economic penalties to limit Russia's ability to fund its war.
In addition, he said a Ukrainian proposal for an international monitoring mission to be deployed on Ukraine's border with Belarus was "becoming more relevant every day," after the Ukrainian military warned of an increasing threat of a Russian attack from Belarusian territory.
Earlier, Kyiv accused Russia of planning to destroy a hydroelectric dam in the eastern Kherson region, where Ukrainian soldiers have been steadily advancing and Moscow-installed authorities have begun evacuations.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian forces had mined the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant with the intent of blowing it up, in what would amount to a "catastrophe on a grand scale".
Hundreds of thousands of people around the lower Dnipro River would be in danger of rapid flooding if the dam was destroyed, Zelensky warned in a speech Thursday to European leaders.
He said cutting water supplies to the south could also impact the cooling systems of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest.
And the North Crimean canal, which provides a crucial water supply to Crimea -- occupied since 2014 by Russia -- could be destroyed.
Russia's goal is to halt the Ukrainian advance in the region and protect Russian troops, according to Zelensky's adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak.
Cities across Ukraine began curbing electricity consumption ahead of winter Thursday as authorities warned that heavy damage to the country's energy grid by Russian attacks would spark a new wave of refugees from the country.
"Russia's leadership has given the order to turn the energy system itself into a battlefield. The consequences of this are very dangerous, again for all of us in Europe," Zelensky said in an address to the EU council
Energy-saving measures were put in place across the country after Russian missile and drone strikes destroyed at least 30 percent of the country's power stations in a week, according to authorities.
Following blackouts in parts of Kyiv overnight, the city's mayor Vitali Klitschko urged businesses to limit screens and signage lights "as much as possible".
"Even small savings and a reduction in electricity consumption in every home will help stabilise the operation of the national energy system," he said.
Ukrainians responded defiantly.
"It's not going to change our attitude, maybe we will only hate them more," said Olga, a resident of Dnipro in central Ukraine who declined to give her last name.
"I would rather sit in the cold with no water and electricity than be in Russia," she said.
People were rushing to buy auxiliary power supplies like generators and batteries, according to Kyrylo, an electronics vendor.
Speaking of the coming winter, he said: "I think that there will be nothing that we cannot survive."
"There will be some kind of heating in any case, and the fact that it will be 16 (degrees Celsius, or 61 Fahrenheit) instead of 20 doesn't matter much. Just put on a thermal and socks," he said.
The White House meanwhile said it had evidence of Iranians taking a direct role in the war, helping Russians direct their Iranian-made "kamikaze drones" -- which are destroyed in attacks on Ukrainian targets such as power stations.
"Tehran is now directly engaged on the ground, and through the provision of weapons that are impacting civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine," said White House national security spokesman John Kirby.
He added that there was also concern Iran might supply surface-to-surface missiles to Russia for use in the war.
"The United States is going to pursue all means to expose, deter and confront Iran's provision of these munitions against the Ukrainian people," he added.
The European Union and United Kingdom announced sanctions on three Iranian generals and an arms firm accused of supplying Russia with drones.
However, bipartisan support for military aid to Ukraine is starting to wane in Washington, with Republicans signalling that funding could be cut after congressional midterm elections next month.
"They said that if they win they're not likely to fund, to continue to fund Ukraine," US President Joe Biden said while campaigning in Pennsylvania.
"They have no sense of American foreign policy."
Little changed along the long front lines, where Russia has been sending many of the 200,000 troops newly called up to the fight.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday visited a training centre for mobilised troops south-east of Moscow where he embraced soldiers and fired a gun.
Some fighters opened their rucksacks to show him what they had been equipped with, and he asked one about his family, who replied he had a five-year-old daughter.
Putin hugged him and wished him "good luck."
Meanwhile Russia continued to evacuate people from Kherson city as Ukrainian forces inched closer to the southern hub, in Moscow's hands since the earliest days of the invasion in February.
Moscow-installed authorities in Kherson said that around 15,000 people have been moved out.
Russia's Rossiya 24 TV showed images of people waiting to board ferries, unable to use bridges damaged by Ukraine.
Kirill Stremousov, a pro-Russian official, said on Telegram that the evacuations would give Russian forces more room to fight, and said they would not cede the city back to the Ukrainians.
"Remember, nobody is going to give up Kherson," he said.
But Ukrainians said the exit of civilians from the area was in fact forced deportations to Russia.
The US-based Institute for the Study of War, in its daily analysis, said that as Ukrainian forces continue to close in on Kherson city, Russian authorities "are likely setting information conditions to justify planned Russian retreats and significant territorial losses."
