April 23,
2022, 9:58 a.m. ET April 23, 2022
April 23,
2022
Marc
Santora
Top Kyiv official says Ukraine has destroyed a
Russian command post in Kherson.
The
Ukrainian military claimed on Saturday that it destroyed a Russian command post
in the southern region of Kherson, which has been largely under Russian control
since the early days of the war.
The
intelligence agency of the Ukrainian defense ministry said in a statement that
the Russian command center was located near a location of active clashes
between the two forces and two high-ranking Russian officers were present at
the time of the strike.
The claim
could not be independently verified and there was no immediate comment from
Russia’s military, which rarely acknowledges battlefield setbacks.
In a
separate statement, Oleksiy Arestovych, a former Ukrainian military
intelligence officer who is now an adviser to the Ukrainian president’s office,
said that about 50 senior Russian officers were in the command center at the
time of the attack.
“Their fate
is unknown, but I think it must be miserable,” he said in an interview with a
well-known Russian human rights activist. The Ukrainian military claimed later
that two Russian generals were killed and another critically injured and had to
be evacuated.
While
fighting is raging in eastern Ukraine, Russia has been seeking to solidify its
control in the south.
The Black
Sea port city of Kherson was the first major urban center to fall to Russian
forces after their invasion. Situated just north of the Russia-annexed Crimean
Peninsula, Kherson has been critical in Moscow’s broader effort to control
territory in the south. It is a vital link in Russia’s logistical chain
stretching to Crimea, allowing for the movement of heavy artillery and
equipment into southern Ukraine by rail.
In the
first weeks of the war, Russia used Kherson as a springboard in its push toward
Odesa. That offensive was ultimately halted by stiff Ukrainian resistance in
the city of Mykolaiv.
After
stopping the Russian advance, the Ukrainians staged several counterattacks and
have reclaimed some villages in the region. But Russia has been fortifying its
positions.
President
Voldymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and other officials in his government have claimed
that Russia is preparing to conduct a “referendum” to create a “Kherson
People’s Republic.”
Moscow used
a similar tactic with a disputed referendum in Crimea, which it invaded in 2015
and subsequently annexed.
“I want to
say straight away: any ‘Kherson People’s Republics’ are not going to fly,” Mr.
Zelensky said earlier this week.
Ukraine’s
foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said that “terror” was the “only aim” of a
strike on Odesa. “We need a wall between civilization and barbarians striking
peaceful cities with missiles,” he said on Twitter.
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