Kherson region: Between fierce fighting and flood waters receding
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00:00 Let's cross now to correspondent Gwendoline Dubonnet.
00:03 Gwendoline, tell us where you are.
00:05 Well, I'm on the road to Rerson and according to our information, the flood water level continues
00:16 to drop in Rerson and the Russian forces on the left bank of the Dnieper are not trying
00:22 to return to their former position, according to a member of the Southern Command, whom
00:29 we met earlier in Odessa.
00:30 She describes Russian soldiers who left in a hurry coming back now to their former position
00:37 with mortars, with cannons, with several pieces of artillery and this movement of Russian
00:43 units closer to the edge of the Dnieper bank is quite chaotic, as she describes.
00:51 Today a group of five Russian soldiers were captured by Ukrainian forces in Rerson because
00:56 they were trapped in the middle of the water.
01:00 So we've been told that step by step the front line in Rerson is returning back to what it
01:07 was before and the more the Russian soldiers return to their former position, the more
01:12 the bombardment and the shelling increase in the city of Rerson.
01:17 Last night the Russian forces shelled the city and shelled the whole region more than
01:22 40 times and today a bombardment in the city left 23 people injured in Rerson.
01:29 And beyond Southern Ukraine, what more do we know this Friday about the counteroffensive?
01:36 So a few days ago Ukrainian forces progressed both in the Zaporozhye sector in the south
01:42 but as well in the Bakhmud sector in the east.
01:45 It's a slow progression and it must be said that on the southern axis the main Russian
01:51 defence line is still 15 kilometres away.
01:55 In any case we should not expect a fast breakthrough like we saw last year in the counteroffensive
02:02 in the Kharkiv region.
02:04 The Russian are trying to prepare a solid defence line on this axis.
02:09 The Faisal mine, the Russian artillery knows how to hit Ukrainian forces, Ukrainian tanks
02:15 when they are trapped in this minefield.
02:18 So for the moment the goal of the Ukrainian is let's say to shape the front line to try
02:23 to find areas where it will be possible to manoeuvre in the near future.
02:29 The main aim of this counteroffensive for Ukrainian forces is to cut the land bridge
02:34 to Crimea and therefore to split Russian forces but the lack of air support is making this
02:40 operation even more complicated and we've been told that to achieve some strategic success
02:48 it will take at least several months.
02:50 We'll be talking about it in the world this week in an hour's time.
02:53 Glendalyn Dubonnet, many thanks for that live update from southern Ukraine.