Deadline until May 9! Vladimir Putin is desperate to take over Dnipropetrovsk region

In the more than three years since Russian President Putin ordered tanks into Ukraine, Russia has failed to break through from Donetsk region, the epicenter of the war, into neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region, which includes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih, The Times reports.

But as May 9 approaches, the Russian leader is desperate for a symbolic battlefield victory to offer his people, the publication reports. According to Ukrainian military officials, his goal is to ensure that Russian soldiers appear on the territory of Dnipropetrovsk region when he takes the podium in Red Square – at any cost.

Just a few kilometers from the regional border, the Kremlin is sacrificing hundreds of soldiers daily for this purpose, according to Colonel Andriy Nazarenko, commander of the unmanned systems battalion of the 72nd Ukrainian brigade.

“The enemy has sharply increased the pressure, is attacking around the clock, doing everything to reach the border”, he stressed.

Tactics of Russian troops

Nazarenko said that Russian troops are using motorcycles and cars to move around the battlefield faster. This gives them greater maneuverability, but makes the Russians more vulnerable.

“They are suffering huge losses, but they are not counting them,“ he noted.

Ukrainian troops claim that the same picture is observed throughout the Donetsk region.

“They have built everything on some kind of obsession with victory, so that their generals can report to Putin: “We are so great, we did this, we took something.“ "But not a single Russian soldier has ever been on the territory of the Dnipropetrovsk region, and we are doing everything possible to keep it that way," commented Ilya Petrina, acting deputy commander of the 25th Airborne Brigade of Ukraine.

In addition, media reports indicate that Russia's attempt to break through the border has been accompanied by a sharp increase in shelling and drone attacks throughout the Donetsk region. The consequences of the Russian strikes are visible everywhere - from the gaping holes in charred apartment buildings to the black smoke rising into the sky over the strategically important city of Pokrovsk, almost completely destroyed by Kremlin strikes.

Even if Russian troops manage to cross the regional border, however, it will not be an immediate strategic breakthrough and will have only symbolic significance for Putin, Ukrainian analysts and officials emphasize.

"This is just a line on the map, not a settlement or a river. "It has no military significance," explains Viktor Tregubov, press secretary of the operational-strategic group "Khortitsa."

The situation in the Dnepropetrovsk region

This week, Ukrainian authorities announced that they had begun the first mandatory evacuation of children from seven front-line villages located just a few kilometers from Russian positions.

"The front is approaching, every day we heard kamikaze drones," says Katerina, who was sent to a temporary shelter in the interior of the region with her two children. This is the second time she has been forced to flee the Russian army: before that, she had to leave the Donetsk region.

"The drones started attacking about a month ago. We didn't expect it. The news said everything was fine, that they had been pushed back. But now you go out to plant potatoes, and there is a drone above you,“ she adds.

The war in Ukraine

UNIAN reported earlier that Putin is planning to strike Ukraine with the “Oreshnik“ missile. The Kremlin believes that Ukraine will not agree to a three-day “truce“, so it will “respond decisively“, the media outlet writes.

It is stated that the Russian Federation has withdrawn its aircraft 4 thousand km from Ukraine.

“Ukraine's actions have led to the fact that the issue of the redistribution of strategic aviation aircraft directly from Olen to the Belaya airbase is now being activated,“ the expert reports.