Moscow is likely building up defenses around Tokmak amid 'concern' over Ukraine breaching the first line of defenses around Robotyne, the U.K. said on Sunday.
Russian forces in southern Ukraine are likely beefing up their defenses around the"linchpin" Zaporizhzhia town of Tokmak because of"growing concern" over Kyiv pressing on through Russian lines in the annexed region, according to the British Defense Ministry.
"In recent days, Russian forces have likely reinforced their defenses around the occupied town of Tokmak in southern Ukraine," the U.K. government said in an intelligence update on Sunday. Tokmak, around 10 miles behind the current front lines in Zaporizhzhia, lies in Ukraine's path to the occupied city of Melitopol, and ultimately to the Sea of Azov. Kyiv's counteroffensive has broken through the first line of Russian defenses around the recently reclaimed town of Robotyne, to the northeast of Tokmak, Ukraine's military said earlier this month.
Kyiv said in late August that it had seized control of Robotyne back from Moscow, and a Russian-backed official in Zaporizhzhia told state television thatSome Ukrainian officials have suggested that Russia's first line of defenses around Robotyne were the most heavily fortified of the several layers in place in Zaporizhzhia.
"There is a very big difference between the first and second line of defense," Ukraine's commander of the Tavria group of forces, Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, told British newspaperat the beginning of September, suggesting fewer Russian resources were pooled into the second and third lines.Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language:
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