Ukraine claims gains against Russian positions on Dnipro east bank

Ukraine’s armed forces claim to have made significant headway via a series of attacks on the Russian-occupied east bank of the Dnipro river.

The country’s Marine Corps said in a statement published on social media on Friday that it had gained “a foothold on several bridgeheads” of Dnipro, near the key southern city of Kherson.

The waterway is the de facto front line in the south of Ukraine. However, Russia conceded for the first time this week that Ukrainian forces had claimed back some territory on the opposing bank.

“The Defence Forces of Ukraine conducted a series of successful operations on the left bank of the Dnipro River, along the Kherson front,” the marines said, and “managed to gain a foothold on several bridgeheads.”

Russian and Ukrainian forces have been entrenched on opposite sides of the Dnipro river since Moscow withdrew from the western part of the Kherson region last November.

The Russian-installed official responsible for occupied Kherson this week conceded that some Ukrainian soldiers were “blocked” in Krynky, a small village on the Dnipro’s eastern bank, and were facing a “fiery hell” from Russian artillery, rockets and drones.

Also on Friday, the Ukrainian Air Force said it had repelled another night of attacks.

It reported that it had shot down nine out of 10 Russian drones overnight over the southern Mykolaiv and Odesa regions, and also near Zhytomyr in the centre, and in the Khmelnytskyi region in the west of the country.

Russia has intensified its strikes on Ukraine’s grain infrastructure, including the major port at Odesa, since July, when Moscow pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative; a wartime deal that enabled Ukraine’s exports to reach African countries facing the threat of hunger.

The air force said in a statement that Russian forces also launched several C-300 missiles during an overnight attack in the eastern Donetsk region, close to the front line.