Russia's Immediate Backtrack on Kherson 'Regrouping' Raises Questions

Russia immediately backtracked on a statement released on Monday that said some of its troops had withdrawn from a key position in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, raising questions about the scale of Moscow's operations in the area.

The Russian Ministry of Defense dismissed its own statements about the "regrouping" of the Dnieper Group of Forces published by state-run news agencies Tass and RIA Novosti as a "provocation", without elaborating.

The term "regrouping" has previously been used by the Kremlin in Russian President Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine to describe a battlefield retreat by its forces.

Ukraine has been gradually expanding a bridgehead on the Russian-controlled bank of the Dnieper River in Kherson, amid its counteroffensive to recapture its occupied territories.

Kyiv's troops reached the occupied side of the Dnieper in mid-October after extensive cross-river operations. That followed Ukraine's successful liberation of the city of Kherson and the west bank of the river toward the end of 2022.

Recent battlefield reports suggest that Kyiv's troops are retaining their positions on the Russian-controlled east bank of the Dnieper river.

The ministry was quoted on Monday as saying that the command of the Dnieper Group of Forces decided to transfer troops to more advantageous positions east of the Russian-occupied east bank of the Kherson Oblast. After the regrouping, the military group "will release part of the forces that will be used for an offensive in other directions."

Tass quickly deleted the report, saying that it was "released erroneously."

The Russian Defense Ministry also told Russian news outlet RBC that the "false message" of the "regrouping" of troops in the region was "a provocation."

Telegram channel "Caution News", which is owned by Russian journalist Ksenia Sobchak, reported that state-run news agency RIA Novosti could have received information about the "regrouping" from a fake Russian Ministry of Defense account, allegedly run from Ukrainian territory.

Another Telegram channel, Rybar, speculated that the news agencies accidentally published news from last year, referring to Russia's abandonment of the city of Kherson in November 2022, which marked one of Russia's most significant retreats in the war.

And the National Resistance Center of Ukraine, which operates as an information outlet under the armed forces of Ukraine, claimed that the message about a "regrouping" was a Russian psychological operation.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday declined to comment on the Defense Ministry's swift backtrack. Newsweek has contacted Russia's Defense Ministry for comment via email.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based think tank, said Sunday that Russian milbloggers are overreacting to Russia's failure to push Ukrainian forces from positions on the east bank of the Kherson region, while others are likely hyperfocusing on the situation due to the significant Russian information space neuralgia about Russian military issues in the area.

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