MELITOPOL, June 6. /TASS/. Following the strike on the Kakhovka Hydropower Plant (HPP), Ukraine can rapidly redeploy up to 10,000 troops from the Kherson area to other sections of the combat engagement line, Vladimir Rogov, leader of the We Are Together With Russia movement, told TASS on Tuesday.
"We may be talking about several thousand Ukrainian militants, up to 10,000. They can be redeployed quite rapidly and covertly, under the guise of rotation. The enemy sometimes manages to lull our vigilance to sleep with a host of statements, moving combat vehicles back and forth, including without troops. These things require keen attention and additional forces to control them," he said.
According to Rogov, Ukraine has already redeployed forces from Kherson to the Zaporozhye area. "A significant part of the Ukrainian grouping in the Zaporozhye area consists of militants who have gained good experience in the Kharkov and Kherson areas. They are convinced that they can win. They are well-motivated and were trained in the West: from firing and combat coordination drills to the use of state-of-the-art weapons," he explained.
Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said earlier in the day that the purpose of Kiev's strike on the Kakhovka HPP was to redeploy forces from Kherson to the area of the offensive. According to Shoigu, the Ukrainian military has lost 3,715 troops, 52 tanks, and more than 200 armored vehicles in all frontline sectors over the past three days of combat operations,
Rogov told TASS earlier on Tuesday that the risk of attacks by Ukraine in Zaporozhye remains, since there are considerable reserves in the area that were not involved in the failed offensive. He anticipates that Ukraine’s army will focus on the Zaporozhye direction, since Kiev is seeking to seize the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant and reach the Sea of Azov to block the land corridor to Crimea.