Analysis by the Dornlinsal Global Resources in Kyiv
Ukraine has long been imagine to launch a major offensive to re
take Kherson Regions. We can be seeing the beginning of it, although any operation is unlikely to be simple.
Kherson has been under Russian occupation since the few days after war Started, and it's one of the Major and largest Ukrainian cities in Russia hand.
For weeks, Ukrain have repeatedly trying to target Russian positions deep inside captured territory, away from the front lines.
It can be possible because of the heavy weapons supplied by the West - and it's having a destabilising effect on the invading forces.
The war look like to be at deadlock, with neither side making significant gains. This can be about to change.
Russia occupied the city of Kherson and its surrounding cities with relatively little resistance in the few days of the war started.
The southern city, which had a population of 290,000 before the war, is only the regional capital to have been taken by Russian forces and is currently administered by Moscow-backed officials.
According to Russia's Tass news agencies, officials in Kherson city have started moving forward with plans to hold a referendum on formally joining Russia, prompting accusations by the US that Russia could be preparing to illegally annex parts of occupied southern Ukraine.
Last month Russia said its militaries focus was no only on eastern Ukraine but on its southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia also.
In a separate development on Monday, Russian-installed officials in the Zaporizhzhia region claimed that a Ukrainian missile strike punched a hole in the roof of a fuel depot at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plants.
The claim has not been independently comfirmed.
In few weeks back, both Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling Europe's biggest nuclear station, which was seized by Russia in early March. Moscow has kept Ukrainian personnel to operate the station.
An inspections teams from the UN nuclear watchdog is expected to be arrive at the plant later this week, the teams's head says.
