In the east of the country, in Bakhmout, where most of the fighting has been concentrated for months, the Ukrainian army assured that it had observed an “exhaustion” of the Russian forces and intended to use them to launch a counterattack “very soon”. -offensive.
Mr. Zelensky, who went to Bakhmout on Wednesday, appeared on Thursday near Kherson, a city from which the Russians withdrew in November 2022 to retreat to the other side of the Dnieper River, the natural border between the two armies.
A few hours after his trip, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense announced that Russian forces had withdrawn on Wednesday from their positions in Nova Kakhovka, a town of 45,000 inhabitants before the war east of Kherson, and where there is in particular a hydroelectric dam. Information then denied by the Ukrainian staff, who recognized an error.
Mr. Zelensky’s series of trips comes just after a summit between Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Moscow, where they displayed their alliance against Westerners. The Russian president cautiously supported the Chinese plan to settle the conflict in Ukraine, while accusing kyiv of rejecting it.
According to press reports, Xi Jinping could now speak on the phone with Volodymyr Zelensky, which would be a first since the start of the Russian invasion which Beijing has neither publicly condemned nor openly supported.