Russia is redeploying forces to strengthen its grip on southern Ukraine, moving forces from the front in the northern Donbass, the Ukrainian and British militaries said, in preparation for a Ukrainian offensive in the south of the country.
Ukraine’s Southern Command has announced that Russian combat forces are deploying near Kribi Ry and Zaporizhzhia, cities in southern Ukraine that are on the border of territory under full Russian control.
“Now the Russian army intends to strengthen its positions in the occupied territories in the south of our country, and to increase activity in the relevant areas,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a speech he delivered at night.
Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Russia was moving a significant amount of troops and likely changing its line of attack in the Donbass after failing to make a breakthrough in a battle plan Moscow had stuck to since April. “They probably identified the Zaporizhia front as a weak point that needs to be overcome,” the British Ministry of Defense said in a statement on Monday.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
The focus of the war is moving south
After months in which the Russian forces manage to advance in eastern Ukraine only with difficulty, the focus of the war is shifting to the south.
Ukraine has used long-range artillery and missile systems, including M142 Heimers missiles, to slow the Russian advance in the east, apparently impairing Moscow’s ability to deliver supplies to the front line. Now, with the help of these Western weapons, Ukraine intends to launch a counteroffensive to recapture the southern port city of Kherson, the largest population center under Russian control and the first city to fall into their hands.
On Monday, the Biden administration approved another $550 million in U.S. military aid to Ukraine, bringing total U.S. military aid to Kiev to more than $8 billion since the Russian invasion.
Earlier in the day, Ukraine’s defense minister said four more Heimers systems had arrived in the country and thanked President Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for bolstering the Ukrainian military. “We proved that we use this weapon very wisely,” wrote Oleksiy Reznikov on Twitter.
On Monday, Russia continued to bomb positions around Donetsk, Kharkiv and Zaporizhia regions, Ukraine’s military said, areas that have been under attack for months.
At the same time, the first shipment of grain since the beginning of the Russian invasion went out
Meanwhile, Ukraine on Monday sent the first grain shipment out of its borders since the start of the Russian invasion, as part of an agreement designed to ease global food shortages.
The ship left the port of Odessa loaded with 26,000 cubic tons of corn on its way to Tripoli, Lebanon, said Ukrainian and Russian officials and the Turkish government, which helped broker the deal. The ship, which carries a Sierra Leonean flag, is expected to arrive in Istanbul on Tuesday, then continue on its route after undergoing inspections there.
The shipment is the first test of the agreement reached in July and allows Ukraine, one of the largest grain exporters in the world, to begin sending part of the 18 million cubic tons of produce that the Russian invasion has stuck inside the country since the end of February. Senior Ukrainian officials were skeptical about Russia’s loyalty to its side of the deal. Russian missiles hit the port of Odessa on July 23, just hours after all four parties to the agreement signed it in Istanbul. Russian officials said the attack targeted military infrastructure.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday that the first ship carrying agricultural produce sailed through a humanitarian corridor agreed upon by Ukraine and Russia and that Russian officers participated in planning the sailing route.
Back on Monday, the Ukrainian General Staff announced that it had detected the use of a radar system across the border with Belarus, an ally of Russia that served as an important staging area and supply point for the invasion of Ukraine. Russia transferred some of its troops to Belarus as it mobilized forces for the invasion, but forces of the Belarusian army itself in the meantime They did not intervene in the conflict.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research institute, said that targeted ground attacks near Izium, a city in eastern Ukraine, may be setting the stage for a renewed Russian offensive towards Kharkiv, but added that it was highly unlikely that the Russians would succeed in capturing the city, which is Ukraine’s second largest city in terms of population. “Russian forces may be conducting counterattacks to prevent Ukrainians from launching counterattacks,” the institute’s latest update on Sunday said.
Russia carried out some of the most brutal attacks of the war against the southern port city of Mykolaiv on Sunday, killing among others the owner of one of the country’s leading agricultural companies.
Mykolaiv, a strategic city that Russia tried but failed to capture in the first weeks of the war, has been the target of repeated launches of Russian Smerch and Oragan missiles and long-range artillery fire in recent weeks, and a cluster bomb attack on Friday killed nine people in the city who were standing at a bus stop.
The attacks early Sunday morning, which lasted for hours, hit a hotel, a sports facility, two schools, a garage and several blocks of apartments, and caused fires, the regional director said. “Mykolaiv suffered a massive artillery attack – perhaps the biggest ever,” mayor Oleksandr Sankevich wrote on social media.
Sankevich said on Monday that Russia bombed a trauma center. “The shock wave and shrapnel also blew out windows in the wards of a nearby clinic,” he wrote on social networks, noting that there were no injuries. “It was the first building built for medical needs in Mykolaiv in 20 years, and one of the most modern trauma care centers in Ukraine. We will rebuild it!”