Putin masses Russian forces for NEW onslaught on Ukraine: Long convoys gathering, says British MOD

Russian tanks, trucks and artillery are amassing successful confederate Ukraine arsenic Putin's forces question to tighten their grip connected the portion amid a valiant counter-offensive by Kyiv.

The Kherson portion adjacent Crimea has been nether Kremlin power since March 2 aft a bloody six-day battle, with Russians driving northbound from the occupied peninsula.

Yet the invaders person faced aggravated pushback by Ukraine implicit caller weeks, with Kyiv present assured it volition liberate the portion by September.

According to the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) regular quality update this morning: 'Long convoys [...] proceed to determination distant from Ukraine's Donbas portion and are headed southwest.'

The MoD added: 'Battalion tactical groups (BTG), which comprise betwixt 800 and 1,000 troops, person been deployed to Crimea and would astir surely beryllium utilized to enactment Russian troops successful the Kherson region.

'Ukrainian forces are focusing their targeting connected bridges, ammunition depots, and obstruction links with increasing frequence successful Ukraine’s confederate regions.

'Russia’s warfare connected Ukraine is astir to participate a caller phase, with the heaviest warring shifting to a astir 350km beforehand enactment stretching southwest from adjacent Zaporizhzhia to Kherson, paralleling the Dnieper River.'

Meanwhile footage posted to Telegram appeared to amusement Ukrainian rockets onslaught a Russian armoured car - the benignant apt to beryllium successful the 'long convoys' said to beryllium connected their mode to Kherson. 

The quality comes amid reports of heinous Russian warfare crimes successful Kherson 'on a standard astir excessively sickening to contemplate', according to Ukraine.

Pro-democracy campaigners successful the metropolis assertion that successful Kherson, Russians are hunted by snipers, ambushed and bombed. Thanks to consignments of Western arms, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) has the powerfulness to inflict superior damage.

The limb the Russians fearfulness astir is the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), supplied by the US and susceptible of firing barrages of missiles from the backmost of an armoured lorry. 

Both manoeuvrable and lethally accurate, these rocket launchers are efficaciously unstoppable. They tin hitch retired an ammunition dump oregon a file of tanks successful 1 hit.

The past consignment of HIMARS was expected to prolong the AFU for a month. But they blazed disconnected the full batch successful 3 days — and with devastating effects.

Kherson determination politician Serhii Khlan vowed past week: 'We tin accidental that the Kherson portion volition decidedly beryllium liberated by September, and each the occupiers' plans volition fail.'

The bold predication came aft a week successful which Ukraine struck 2 cardinal bridges starring to Kherson successful an evident effort to chopped the metropolis disconnected from reinforcements, and arsenic video revealed destroyed Russian anti-air systems successful the region.

Kherson is the lone determination superior to person fallen to Putin's troops successful the five-month warfare and is Russia's lone foothold connected the occidental slope of the Dnipro stream which flows down the centre of Ukraine.

Recapturing it would woody a large propaganda stroke to Putin's forces, and spell a imaginable extremity to its attempts to propulsion westbound on the Black Sea to the larboard of Odesa.

Russia's generals person antecedently said that cutting disconnected Ukraine from the Black Sea - denying Zelensky's authorities entree to its most-lucrative trading routes - is simply a cardinal purpose of their war.