The Russian military said on Tuesday that the situation on the ground in Ukraine was “tense” for its troops in the face of a Ukrainian counteroffensive after several major setbacks in the east and south, AFP and Reuters reported.
“The situation in the area of the military special operation can be characterized as tense. The enemy does not stop trying to attack the positions of the Russian troops,” said the head of operational management in Ukraine, General Serhiy Surovikin. over the last ten days on the Russian state TV channel “Russia 24”.
The Russian army is preparing to evacuate the population of the city of Kherson, the capital of the region annexed by Russia in the south of Ukraine, in the face of a counteroffensive from Kyiv, the commander of Russian forces in Ukraine said on Tuesday.
“The Russian army will first of all ensure the safe evacuation of the population” from Kherson, where Ukrainian attacks on civilian infrastructure “create a direct threat to the lives of residents,” said General Serhiy Surovikin, stressing that the situation in the city is “very difficult.”
Who is General Serhiy Surovikin?
Sergei Surovikin, the former commander of Russian operations in Syria, is “a notoriously corrupt and brutal general even by the standards of the Russian army, according to the British Ministry of Defence,” wrote Max Seddon, the Moscow-based editor of the Financial Times, on Twitter.
The changes took place after two weeks ago the media reported the dismissal of the commanders of two of Russia’s five military districts.
Surovikin, 55, is a veteran of Tajikistan’s civil war in the 1990s, the second Chechen war in the 2000s and the Russian intervention in Syria that began in 2015.
According to the July report of the Russian agency, he still headed the “South” group of forces in Ukraine.
The name of his predecessor was not officially disclosed, but according to Russian media, he is General Oleksandr Dvornikov, also a veteran of the Second Chechen War and the commander of Russian troops in Syria in 2015-2016.
This decision made public by Moscow – a rare fact – appeared after a series of crushing defeats suffered by the Russian army in Ukraine.
Source: Hot News RO
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