Russia Sends Out Dire Ukraine Warning as Preparations Made to Evacuate—Kyiv

Ukraine's armed forces have said Russian occupiers in a city in the southern Kherson region are telling locals where to evacuate in the event of a breakthrough by Kyiv.

The claim by the Ukraine's General Staff comes amid a counteroffensive launched by Kyiv's forces which is believed to have started on June 4 and is aimed at recapturing occupied territory.

In an update on Wednesday, Ukraine's General Staff said that in Henichesk, a port city along the Sea of Azov in the Kherson region, "collaborators receive SMS messages with detailed instructions and coordinates of evacuation points."

This information is causing "panic" the statement in Ukrainian added, according to a translation.

The city had a pre-war population of about 18,000 and has been the administrative regional center for Moscow's occupation since November 2022 after Russian forces withdrew from the city of Kherson.

Ukrainian outlet Ukrinform reported the update from Kyiv's forces, saying that "Russian occupiers are actively disseminating information about evacuation in case of a breakthrough by the Ukrainian Armed Forces."

It comes as British defense officials said on Wednesday that Russia has been building defensive lines in rear areas, especially on the approaches between Kherson and Crimea.

These included an extensive zone of defense, 6 miles long and 2 miles wide, north of the town Armiansk, on the narrow bridge of land connecting the occupied peninsula to the Kherson region.

Russia's efforts at building such defenses suggest that Moscow considers Ukrainian forces capable of directly assaulting Crimea and the Kremlin sees controlling the peninsula "as a top political priority."

On Tuesday, Ukraine's General Staff said that its forces had conducted offensive operations on at least two sectors of the front, on the administrative border between the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions and in the western Zaporizhzhia region.

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) said Tuesday that its units of the Eastern Grouping of Forces had repelled four Ukrainian assaults in these sectors. The day before, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar had said Ukrainian advances had been made difficult by Russian forces.

However, Kyiv has said that current Ukrainian operations were not only intended to liberate Russian-occupied territory and that it had not yet started the main phase of its counteroffensive.

Glen Grant, a senior defense expert from the Baltic Security Foundation, said Ukraine needed to concentrate its tanks in one place to make gains against Russia and he was concerned they were being too dispersed

"They are spreading the butter a bit too thinly than is really needed," he told Newsweek.

"The main counterattack has not happened yet. What they are asking themselves is 'where are the gaps, where are the weaknesses and can we break through first before we commit follow-on forces?" he said.

"The main heavier units have not appeared yet. Yes, we have seen some Leopards but not in big numbers."

Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry for comment.