Ukraine says scores of Russian troops killed in southern battles

ODESA/KYIV (Ukraine) • The Ukrainian military said yesterday that it had killed scores of Russian soldiers in fighting in the south, including the Kherson region that is the focus of Kyiv's counteroffensive in that part of the country and a key link in Moscow's supply lines.

Rail traffic to Kherson over the Dnipro river had been cut, the military's southern command said, potentially further isolating Russian forces west of the river from supplies in occupied Crimea and the east.

Defence and intelligence officials from Britain portrayed Russian forces as struggling to maintain momentum.

Ukraine has used Western-supplied long-range missile systems to badly damage three bridges across the Dnipro in recent weeks, cutting off Kherson city and - in the assessment of British defence officials - leaving Russia's 49th Army stationed on the west bank of the river highly vulnerable.

The Ukrainian military's southern command said more than 100 Russian soldiers and seven tanks had been destroyed in fighting in the south of the country on Friday.

The first deputy head of the Kherson regional council, Mr Yuri Sobolevsky, told residents to stay away from Russian ammunition dumps. "The Ukrainian army is pouring it on against the Russians and this is only the beginning," Mr Sobolevsky wrote on the Telegram app.

The pro-Ukrainian governor of the Kherson region, Mr Dmytro Butriy, said Berislav district was particularly hard hit. Berislav is across the river, north-west of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant.

"In some villages, not a single home has been left intact, all infrastructure has been destroyed, people are living in cellars," Mr Butriy wrote on Telegram.

Officials from the Russian-appointed administration running the Kherson region earlier this week rejected Western and Ukrainian assessments of the situation.

In an intelligence update yesterday, Britain's Defence Ministry said Russia had likely established two pontoon bridges and a ferry system to compensate for bridges damaged in Ukrainian strikes.

Russian-installed authorities in occupied territories in southern Ukraine were possibly preparing to hold referendums on joining Russia later this year, and were "likely coercing the population into disclosing personal details in order to compose voting registers", it added.

On Friday, the ministry described the Russian government as "growing desperate", having lost tens of thousands of soldiers in the war. The chief of Britain's MI6 foreign intelligence agency, Mr Richard Moore, added on Twitter that Russia is "running out of steam".

But with the invasion now five months old, Russia continues to launch air and missile strikes against military and civilian targets, according to Ukraine's military office.

Strikes were reported in the Kharkiv area, with at least one person killed, and in the Bakhmut and Zaporizhzhia regions.

In Kharkiv, rockets from an S-300 surface-to-air system destroyed part of an educational facility in a strike in the early hours yesterday, the local authorities said.

In the south, Moscow's troops are focusing on holding occupied positions and preventing a potential Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Ground fighting continues north of Kharkiv and Russian forces attempted a limited ground assault in the Kherson region.

The death toll from Russian shelling of a bus station in Mykolaiv on Friday has risen to seven, with 14 injured, the city authorities said. At least one death was reported from an overnight rocket strike.

Separately, the mayor of Mykolaiv said one person was killed when rockets pounded two residential districts overnight. Six others were wounded in the strikes.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, BLOOMBERG