Conflict
Kyiv Claims Russian Pullback
Ukraine's military said on Thursday Russia had pulled some troops from towns on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River from Kherson city, the first official Ukrainian report of a Russian withdrawal on what is now the main front line in the south.
The Ukrainian military statement gave only limited details and made no mention of any Ukrainian forces having crossed the Dnipro.
"A decrease in the number of Russian soldiers and military equipment is observed in the settlement of Oleshky," the Ukrainian military said, referring to the town opposite Kherson city, on the far side of a destroyed bridge over the Dnipro.
"Enemy troops were withdrawn from certain settlements of the Kherson oblast and dispersed in forest strips along the section of the Oleshky - Hola Prystan highway," it said, referring to a 25-km (15-mile) stretch of road through riverside towns scattered in woods on the bank opposite Kherson city.
Russia has already told civilians to leave towns within 15 km of the river and withdrew its civilian administration from the city of Nova Kakhovska on the river bank.
Ukrainian officials have previously said Russia pulled back some artillery near the river to safer positions further away, but until now had stopped short of saying Russian forces were quitting towns.
Kyiv also stressed that Russia had intensified shelling across the river, knocking out power again in Kherson where electricity had only begun to be restored nearly three weeks after Russian troops vacated the city and fled across the river.
The Ukraine war is entering a relentless new phase with the onset of the first winter since Russia's Feb. 24 invasion.
After withdrawing in the south in November, Moscow has focused its firepower on a section of the front line in the east near the city of Bakhmut, where hundreds of soldiers are thought to be dying a day in some of the conflict's bloodiest fighting, yielding little reported gains of territory on either side.
Ukraine's armed forces reported heavy shelling of a number of frontline cities in the area.
"We are analyzing the intentions of the occupiers and preparing counter-measures - tougher counter-measures than is now the case," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an overnight televised address.
The European Union called this week for a special tribunal to prosecute Russian officials accused of aggression, the war crime of attacking another state without justification. The Kremlin rejected this on Thursday.
"As for attempts to establish some kind of tribunal: they will have no legitimacy, will not be accepted by us and we will condemn them," Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a briefing call with reporters.
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