Ukraine: Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson to take at least a week

Quickly following up on today’s earlier reporting:

Ukraine Doubts Kherson Retreat: Warfare is Deception

Jerusalem Post

Oleksii Reznikov told Reuters Russia had a contingent of 40,000 troops in Kherson region and that intelligence showed its forces remained in the city.

I’d mentioned this in the previous post (above)

“It’s not that easy to withdraw these troops from Kherson in one day or two days. As a minimum, (it will take) one week,” he said.

Russian withdrawal would ‘free up’ forces

Russia said on Wednesday that its forces would retreat from the west bank of the Dnipro River, which includes Kherson, the only regional capital Moscow had captured since invading Ukraine in February.

Reznikov said that such an exit would free up forces from both sides to fight elsewhere. Ukraine, he said, had a security and defense force of 1 million personnel to guard a “non-friendly” 2,500-km border with Belarus, Russia and occupied Ukrainian areas.

He dismissed as "crazy" the idea that Russia might blow up the Kakhovka dam as it withdraws, saying it would flood areas controlled by Moscow.

Ukraine DISMISSED AS “CRAZY” that Russia might blow up the KAKHOVA DAM saying it would flood areas controlled by Moscow.

“If you check the landscape in this district, you will find that the western bank is higher terrain and the east bank is lower terrain,” he said.

“This means the water will flow east of this bank and they will have a risk for their troops,” he said.

It’s doubtful Russia would blow up this dam. If either party did it would be Ukraine, but, I can’t see that type of action being in their interest either. However, one can never be sure.