MOSCOW, April 18. /TASS/. Ukrainian forces are seen massing up in the Kherson Region to cross the Dnieper, Kherson Region Interim Governor Vladimir Saldo has said on Tuesday.

"There are data regularly that they are gathering up in certain places and military equipment is being assembled on the right bank, and the propaganda machine has revved up," he said on Rossiya-24 television. "Intentions like this exist. It can be seen from the actions that the Ukrainian junta is making: They are recruiting almost all low-tonnage fleet, small ships and boats. Including the boats that people of the Kherson Region used to go to their country houses, move around the Dnieper and its tributaries. All those boats are now utilized. It’s an obvious preparation to possibly engage all these boats to land troops, cross the Dnieper."

Saldo said on February 1 that Ukrainian forces were making attempts to land on the Russia-controlled eastern bank of the Dnieper, but were repelled by Russian forces. He said it’s not easy to cross a river like the Dnieper, especially with a small force, and that the Ukrainian command, acting on orders from NATO advisers, doomed its soldiers to make efforts to cross the Dnieper, even as they were known in advance to be impossible.

On January 26, Chairman of the We Are Together With Russia group Vladimir Rogov said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine tried to cross the Dnieper at Novaya Kakhovka overnight, and Russian forces opened fire.