UK intelligence: Russian-Ukrainian war is about to enter new phase

Russia's war on Ukraine is about to enter a new phase, with the heaviest fighting shifting to a roughly 350km front line stretching southwest from near Zaporizhzhya to Kherson, paralleling the Dnieper River, British intelligence report on the Twitter page of the UK Ministry of Defense says.

"Russian forces are almost certainly massing in the south in anticipation of Ukraine's counter-offensive or in preparation for a possible assault. Long convoys of Russian military trucks, tanks, towed artillery, and other weapons continue to move away from Ukraine's Donbas region and are headed southwest. Equipment was also reported to be moving from Russian-occupied Melitopol, Berdiansk, Mariupol and from mainland Russia via the Kerch Bridge into Crimea," Defense HQ tweeted.

According to intelligence, Battalion tactical groups (BTG), which comprise between 800 and 1,000 troops, have been deployed to Crimea and would almost certainly be used to support Russian troops in the Kherson region:

"On August 2, 2022, a new BTG was deployed to Crimea, and BTGs are also being re-deployed from the Eastern Grouping of Forces. These will highly likely be sent into the Kherson region in the coming days. Ukrainian forces are focusing their targeting on bridges, ammunition depots, and rail links with growing frequency in Ukraine's southern regions. Including the strategically important railroad spur that links Kherson to Russian-occupied Crimea, almost certainly using a combination of block, damage, degrade, deny, destroy, and disrupt effects to try to affect Russia's ability to logistically resupply."