Daily Military Update – June 15

UAF patrol reported 10 kilometers from Kherson, possible partisan attack

Ukraine Armed Forces patrols were operating as close as 10 kilometers from the long-occupied port Kherson, as a possible partisan attack hit the center of the city, according to media reports and official statements made public on Wednesday, June 15.

A statement from the Kherson regional defense command claimed that UAF forces had captured the town of Tomina Balka, some 20 km from Kherson. Ukrainian units had “overcome” Russian Federation (RF) forces in the vicinity, were moving south, and were engaging RF defenders in the vicinity of the town Tavrisky, said Serhiy Khlan’, an advisor of the Kherson regional defense command, in a Wednesday, June 15 statement.

On Tuesday, June 14 Ukrainian social media widely repeated video images of a masked UAF fighter claiming his unit was less than 10kilometers from Kherson. Kyiv Post was unable to confirm this claim in full.

On Wednesday, June 15, both social media users and independent news sources operating in Ukraine’s southern sector showed images of UAF tanks and armored personnel carriers moving unopposed.

Regular UAF combat units, among them elements of the 28th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, were reportedly advancing on Kherson.

Other video showed RF armored vehicles, purportedly in the Kherson sector, under 28th Brigade artillery fire. A UAF officer operating in the southern sector told Kyiv Post his unit was more heavily engaged than in past weeks and that it had increased patrolling. He asked that Kyiv Post not identify him or his unit, or make public details of UAF activities in his sector, because of operational security.

The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), in a Tuesday, June 14 situation estimate, said UAF units were conducting an offensive in the Mykolaiv-Kherson sector and had forced RF units to take up defensive positions at multiple locations across the southern front. The ISW analysis confirmed earlier reports, surfacing in Ukrainian media on Monday and Tuesday of this week, that near Davydiv Brid, a town controlling a key crossing of the Inhulets River to the north-east of Kherson, RF units were digging in and placing land mines into position.

The pro-Russia Readovka news platform, said on Wednesday, June 15, that UAF rocket artillery fire struck the town of Chernobayivka, near Kherson, killing two civilians and injuring five.

There was no independent confirmation of the claim.

The UAF has repeatedly targeted the Chernobayivka vicinity since March, primarily in strikes against RF supply units, military headquarters, and aircraft based at the town airport. RF units overran Kherson in the second week of the war. An industrial port on the Dnipro River, the city is the only Ukrainian regional capital that has so far been captured by the Russians.

By May, RF occupation authorities declared the city fully under Kremlin control and announced plans to hold a referendum on Kherson Region joining the Russian Federation. Kyryl Stremousov, Vice-Head of the RF-associated Kherson occupation authority, in comments reported on Wednesday, June 15 by the Ishchi Svoikh Telegram platform, said: “Kherson Oblast factually is already irreversibly a Russian region. Nazi ideology will never be in the south-east of Ukraine.”

Kyiv officials have claimed that Kherson’s population is largely loyal to Ukraine, and that partisans are operating across the region.

Andriy Nemirovsky, a Ukrainian politician and UAF officer, in a Wednesday, June 15 Facebook post, claimed that an RPG was fired at 06:53 in Kherson’s stadium district, near the regional administration building, and struck an automobile driven by Volodymyr Saldo, a Kherson official “collaborating” with Kremlin authorities.. According to Nemirovsky, Saldo died in the blast.

Ukrainian independent media on Wednesday, June 15, published video and still images of a vehicle burning in a Kherson parking lot and reported that a car bomb or a rocket-propelled grenade set off the explosion. In a video statement, Saldo denied he was ever attacked, and accused Nemirovsky of creating fake news.