Compared to Ukraine’s triumphant offensive on Kharkiv Oblast in September and Kherson Oblast in October, the front line in this part of Ukraine has advanced very slowly in recent weeks, the Kyiv Independent reports.

“During the last Ukrainian offensive, the Russians lost territory, but on the other hand, the front line was reduced and Russian troop density improved,” said Konrad Muzyka, director of defense analysis firm Rochan Consulting, which tracks Russian forces.

“In other words, they have more people per square kilometer than before,” he says.

Music says there are reports of the Russians consolidating and consolidating their positions, but also, paradoxically, of the Russians abandoning them.

OSINT analysts and the Ukrainian military who spoke to the Kyiv Independent said that Russian forces on the west bank of the Dnieper are still mostly defending the captured territory.

Russia redoubled its claims on Kherson Oblast and other occupied territories at the end of September, when it held a fake “referendum” there and declared that it was “including” Kherson Oblast into the Russian Federation, thereby violating international law.

The Russians do not want to surrender their only captured regional capital without a fight. However, it seems that the leaders of the occupation appointed by Russia have retreated across the river.

“They’re simulating some kind of defense there,” Tehotsky says. “But we have data that everything valuable has already been taken out of Kherson. We know for sure that the entire city administration, all state institutions are already empty, there are not even flags on the buildings.”

“There were even cases when food was left because it is difficult to transport things across the Dnipro,” he says. “Local civilians picked her up and took her home.”

Russian forces and their collaborators have ordered up to 70,000 residents of an area 15 kilometers east of the Dnipro River to relocate to the still-occupied parts of the region.

Artillery battles

Music reports that the Ukrainians are continuing their artillery strikes on Russian roadblocks, bridges, logistics centers, ammunition depots and command posts.

They’ve been doing this for months, using good intelligence from drones, satellites and people on the ground to hit the Russians where it hurts.

“We know their every move,” Tehotsky says.

These point strikes reduce Russia’s ability to hold the western bank of the river. Analysts believe that the Russians will eventually be forced to abandon this position.

“The Ukrainians will seek to create conditions that will force the Russians to leave,” says Muzyka. “But at the same time, they are worried that the Russians won’t give up Kherson so easily.”

Tehotsky says the Russians are aware that everyone perceives them as occupiers and tend to band together for security in large numbers, making them vulnerable.

“They don’t have enough skill or strength, their morale is low,” Raven says. “When I drove past their positions, I saw how they live terribly. They had a small pit half a meter deep, 1.5 meters long, so you could barely lie down, covered in a pile of garbage. They live like vagabonds,” he says (Fully on Kyiv Independent)