Military briefing: Ukraine forces probe Russian defences across Dnipro river

Michael Clarke, a military expert and former head of the Royal United Services Institute, said the raids were apparently seeking to establish small pockets of Ukrainian forces that could then be used for a broader attack to clear Russian forces from the southern east bank. “We don’t know exactly what the axis of their attack is going to be, but all of the signs are — and there could be some grand deception in this — they want to go south of Orikhiv towards Tokmak and Melitopol,” he said, referring to Ukraine’s current offensive push in southern Zaporizhzhia, north-east of where the raids are taking place.