Ukrainian official says Russia digging in for ‘heaviest of battles’ in Kherson

Russian forces are digging in for the "heaviest of battles" in the strategic southern region of Kherson, a senior Ukrainian official said, as the Kremlin prepares to defend the largest city under its control from Ukraine's counter-offensive.

Russian forces in the region have been driven back in recent weeks and risk being trapped against the west bank of the Dnipro river, where the provincial capital of Kherson has been in Russian hands since the early days of the invasion of Ukraine eight months ago.

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Russian-installed authorities are evacuating residents to the east bank, but Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said there was no sign that Russian forces were preparing to abandon the city.

"With Kherson everything is clear. The Russians are replenishing, strengthening their grouping there," Arestovych said in an online video late on Tuesday.

Residents who fled Kherson arrive in Russia on Tuesday. AP

"It means that nobody is preparing to withdraw. On the contrary, the heaviest of battles is going to take place for Kherson."

Of the four provinces Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed to have annexed in September, Kherson is arguably the most strategically important. It controls both the only land route to the Crimea peninsula Russia seized in 2014 and the mouth of the Dnipro, the vast river that bisects Ukraine.

Yuri Sobolevsky, a member of the ousted pro-Ukrainian Kherson regional council, said the Russia-installed authorities were putting increasing pressure on Kherson residents to leave.

"Search and filtration procedures are intensifying as are searches of cars and homes," he wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting. File photo

In Ishchenka district north of Kherson, Ukrainian forces tried to consolidate their positions, but were forced back to earlier lines, the post said. It said the Ukrainian military was preparing for an advance along the entire length of the frontline.

A Reuters reporter in a remote hamlet near part of the Kherson frontline said residents hoped Russian forces would soon withdraw.

"You fall asleep at night and you don't know if you will wake up," said Mikola Nizinets, 39, referring to Russian shelling.

With no power or gas and little food or potable water in the area, many residents have fled, abandoning cattle to roam among expended munitions poking from the soil.

Reuters