Vladimir Putin’s troops are suffering “significant losses” as they desperately try to hold onto southern Ukraine’s Kherson province, a British military think tank said on Thursday. Dr Jack Watling, a senior researcher on land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute, said there had been “tough fighting” but so far Russian units had stopped Ukrainian forces from “advancing rapidly”. Russian troops in the northeastern region of Kharkiv had “collapsed” and retreated after a surprise counterattack by the Ukrainian army. Weapons and equipment, some from the West, that have been “critical” to some of the Ukrainian successes include long-range rocket artillery, targeting capability to hit ammunition dumps for Russian artillery, anti-radiation missiles to suppress Russian air defense systems and electronic warfare complexes and protected military vehicles that allowed Ukrainian forces to move “very quickly.” Giving an update on the state of the conflict, Dr Watling told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The Russians are trying desperately to hold Kherson.
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“They are taking significant losses in the south, but they are able to stop the Ukrainians from advancing quickly. “Well, there are tough battles there.” He added: “In the north, the (Russian) western troop group has collapsed, north of Izyum, and has withdrawn. “The Russians are now working to stabilize their defense lines and the Ukrainians seem to have slowed their pursuit because they are worried about outpacing their own logistics. “Well, now we see the reform of the line, and the Ukrainians are preparing for further actions.” The setbacks suffered by Mr Putin’s troops had not led to “sequential collapse”, but morale in many units was “very low”. Therefore, Russian troops were still “vulnerable to shocks” that could lead to further “breakdowns” in military formations. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine announced on Thursday that Russian forces launched attacks on several settlements on the front line of Kharkiv in the past 24 hours. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said towns and villages retaken by Russian forces had been destroyed, as a major city stepped up efforts on Thursday to repair damage to its water system from missile attacks. Mr Zelensky made a surprise visit on Wednesday to Izyum, until four days ago Russia’s main bastion in the Kharkiv region, where he watched as the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag was raised in front of the charred city council building. “Our law enforcement forces are already receiving evidence of killings, torture and abduction of people by the occupiers,” he said in an overnight speech, stressing that there was “evidence of genocide against Ukrainians.” He added: “They only destroyed, only confiscated, only deported. They left devastated villages and in some of them not a single house is saved.” Mr Zelensky’s video address was released after he returned to Kyiv from the Kharkiv region and his office said his car had collided with a private vehicle in the capital. “The president was examined by a doctor, no serious injuries were found,” presidential spokesman Serhii Nykyforov said in a Facebook post early Thursday. Kryvyi Rih, the largest city in central Ukraine, with a pre-war population of 650,000, was hit by eight cruise missiles on Wednesday, officials said. The strikes hit the Karachunov reservoir dam, Mr Zelensky said. The water system had “no military value” and hundreds of thousands of civilians depended on it every day, he added. Oleksandr Vilkul, head of Krivyi Rih’s military administration, said in a Telegram post that 112 houses were flooded, but that work to repair the dam on the Inhulets River was ongoing and that “floods are subsiding.” Meanwhile, Mr Putin was due to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Uzbekistan early Thursday afternoon. The two leaders were in Samarkand to attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional security group. They will also have a tripartite meeting with Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh. Separately, the Uzbek government said Mr Putin would also meet leaders of Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. On Friday, Mr Putin is due to meet the leaders of Azerbaijan, India and Turkey. Putin and Xi, who left China for the first time in more than two years since the Covid pandemic broke out, were expected to discuss Ukraine and Taiwan at the meeting which the Kremlin says would be of “special importance”. given the geopolitical situation.
