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By Aleks Phillips
U.S. News Reporter
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Ukrainian forces have successfully established positions along the eastern bank of the Dnieper River in the past few days in a sign that Russian forces are losing their defensive positions in the south, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has said.
The Washington D.C.-based research organization said that Russian military bloggers had been able to provide enough geolocated footage and reports to confirm the presence of the Ukrainian military on the other side of the natural boundary as of Saturday. Kherson Oblast, in the south of the country, sits above Crimea and has been largely under Russian control since the early phases of the war.
The development comes as Western analysts have long suspected Ukraine would mount a spring offensive on Russian defensive positions, which entrenched over the winter as the war approached its first year of fighting. In late 2022, Ukraine was able to recapture the city of Kherson, which it heralded as a key victory and left Russia holding none of the country's major cities.
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The ISW could not confirm the scale or the intentions of the landings, which appear to have occurred north of Oleshky, a town opposite Kherson on the other side of the Dnieper River.
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Footage reportedly recorded on April 18 shows Ukrainian amphibious vehicles landing on the eastern bank of the river, establishing a bridgehead. Bridges across the river had previously been destroyed as Ukraine sought to cut Russian supply lines into Kherson.
The ISW said footage indicated that as well as establishing positions along the banks of the Dnieper River, Ukrainian forces had advanced as far as the northern outskirts of Oleshky and west of Dachi, a settlement that sits on either side of the Antonivsky bridge—which was taken out by Ukrainian missile strikes to cut off Russian forces previously in the city of Kherson.
It added that evidence suggested the Russian forces had no control over the islands within the nearby Kinka and Chaika rivers, near the Antonivsky bridge.
The ISW said Russian military bloggers "claimed on April 20 and 22 that Ukrainian forces have maintained positions in east bank Kherson Oblast for weeks, established stable supply lines to these positions, and regularly conduct sorties in the area—all indicating a lack of Russian control over the area."
Leaked Pentagon intelligence which began circulating online a few weeks ago appeared to show U.S. support and plans for a Ukrainian counteroffensive. One document purported to argue that Ukraine would only be able to secure "modest territorial gains" in a spring counteroffensive.
Ukrainian officials have said the leaked documents contained "a mix of truth and falsehoods."
The leaked documents suggested that as of March 1, most of the Russian forces south of the Dnieper River were located further upstream, near Dniprovka and around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which remains under Russian control and has been a focus of alarm for international leaders.
Emitter data, used to track Russian forces, seen in the now-public documents, show that while there was a Russian military presence south of Kherson, it was far smaller than elsewhere in the region. A push southward from Kherson would not only place Ukrainian troops closer to Crimea—which Russia annexed in 2014, and which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed to take back—but would also allow them to flank the Russian military from the west.
"Russian forces may be prioritizing maintaining defenses in urban areas such as Oleshky and Nova Kakhovka, leaving the islands in the Dnipro River delta unmanned," the ISW suggested.
Update 04/23/23, 6:15 a.m. ET: This article was updated with further details throughout.
Update 04/24/23, 4:45 a.m. ET: This article and its headline were updated for clarity.
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