KYIV - Ukraine’s military said on Thursday Russia had pulled some troops from towns on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River from Kherson city, the first official Ukrainian report of a Russian withdrawal on what is now the main front line in the south.

The statement gave only limited details and made no mention of any Ukrainian forces having crossed the Dnipro. Ukrainian officials also stressed that Russia had intensified shelling across the river, knocking out power again in Kherson, where electricity had only begun to be restored nearly three weeks after Russian troops vacated the city and fled across the river.

Since Russia abandoned Kherson last month, nine months into its invasion of Ukraine, the river now forms the entire southern stretch of the front.

Russia has already told civilians to leave towns within 15km of the river and withdrew its civilian administration from the city of Nova Kakhovska on the river bank.

Ukrainian officials have previously said Russia pulled back some artillery near the river to safer positions further away, but until now had stopped short of saying Russian forces were quitting towns.

“A decrease in the number of Russian soldiers and military equipment is observed in the settlement of Oleshky,” the military said, referring to the town opposite Kherson city, on the far side of a destroyed bridge over the Dnipro.

“Enemy troops were withdrawn from certain settlements of the Kherson oblast and dispersed in forest strips along the section of the Oleshky-Hola Prystan highway,” it said, referring to a 25km stretch of road through riverside towns scattered in woods on the bank opposite Kherson city.

It said most of the Russian troops in the area are recently mobilised reservists, suggesting that Moscow’s best-trained professional troops had already left the area.

Reuters could not independently confirm the report.

Separately, Ukraine tightened security at its diplomatic missions around the world on Thursday after a mail bomb exploded at its embassy in Madrid, one of several devices sent to targets in Spain, including to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

Ambassador Serhii Pohoreltsev told the Ukrainian news site European Pravda that the suspicious package addressed to him had been opened outside the building by the embassy’s Ukrainian commandant, who was injured in the blast.

“After opening the box and hearing a click that followed, he tossed it and then heard the explosion,” he said. “Despite not holding the box at the time of the explosion, the commandant hurt his hands and received a concussion.”

The Ukraine war is entering a relentless new phase with the onset of the first winter since Russia’s Feb 24 invasion.

After withdrawing in the south in November, Moscow has focused its firepower on a section of the front line in the east near the city of Bakhmut, where hundreds of soldiers are thought to be dying a day in some of the conflict’s bloodiest fighting, yielding little reported gains of territory on either side.

Ukraine’s armed forces reported heavy shelling of a number of frontline cities in the area.

“We are analysing the intentions of the occupiers and preparing counter-measures - tougher counter-measures than is now the case,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an overnight televised address.

Mr Denis Pushilin, head of the Russian-installed administration in occupied parts of Donetsk province, said a prisoner exchange was expected to take place later on Thursday, with the sides each releasing 50 prisoners.

There are no political talks under way to end the war, which Russia launched as a “special military operation” claiming its aim was to disarm its neighbour and root out leaders it characterises as dangerous nationalists.

Kyiv and the West call it an imperialist land grab that has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers on both sides.

Since early October, Russia has also launched near weekly massive missile and drone attacks across Ukraine to knock out its power supply, water and heat, which Kyiv and the West say is intended to harm civilians, a war crime.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov defended those strikes on Thursday, saying Moscow was targeting Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure to prevent Kyiv from importing Western weapons. He did not explain how such attacks could achieve that aim.

“We disable energy facilities (in Ukraine) that allow you (the West) to pump lethal weapons into Ukraine to kill Russians,” Mr Lavrov said.

Separately, Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said defence forces have shot down 340 of the roughly 400 Iranian drones that Russian has launched during the war.

“We haven’t seen these Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles for about two weeks... the first batch has probably already run out,” he told Ukraine’s main television network.

The European Union called this week for a special tribunal to prosecute Russian officials accused of aggression, the war crime of attacking another state without justification. The Kremlin rejected this on Thursday.

“As for attempts to establish some kind of tribunal: they will have no legitimacy, will not be accepted by us, and we will condemn them,” Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a briefing call with reporters.

Ukraine’s nuclear power company said on Thursday it had sacked a senior engineer at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant for collaborating with Russia, a day after Moscow said the engineer, Mr Yuriy Chernichuk, was promoted to become the plant’s new boss.

In October, Russia said it was taking control of the plant, which is located in Russian-held territory along the Dnipro but still operated by Ukrainian engineers. Kyiv says the plant still belongs to Ukraine and Russia’s seizure of it is illegal.

Meanwhile, in Washington, a US$1.2 billion (S$1.6 billion) contract for six National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (Nasams) for Ukraine was awarded to Raytheon, the Pentagon said.

On Wednesday, Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said his country needs US-made Patriot missile defence systems to protect its civilian infrastructure, which has been under heavy attack by Russia at the start of winter.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Russian President Vladimir Putin has focused “his ire and his fire” on Ukraine’s civilian population and warned Russia that its strategy would fail to divide Ukraine’s supporters.

“Heat, water, electricity ... these are President Putin’s new targets. He’s hitting them hard. This brutalisation of Ukraine’s people is barbaric,” Mr Blinken told a news conference in Bucharest following a two-day Nato meeting.

At the Nato foreign ministers meeting, allies on Wednesday pledged to help Moldova, Georgia and Bosnia-Herzegovina as they face pressure from Russia, Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and ministers said.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the outcome shows Nato is “absolutely not interested in a political and diplomatic solution in Ukraine”.

On the economic front, a deal is close on resuming Russian ammonia exports through a pipeline to a Ukrainian Black Sea port, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said.

“I think we’re quite close, we’re edging towards it this week,” Mr Griffiths told a Reuters NEXT event.

A deal aimed at easing global food shortages by helping Ukraine export its agricultural products from Black Sea ports was extended on Nov 17 for four months, though Russia said its own demands have yet to be fully addressed.

The agreement was initially brokered in July by the United Nations with the help of Turkey. REUTERS