- White Sox heading for worst season in MLB history
- China the top challenge in US history: senior diplomat
- Hong Kong democracy tycoon's son warns time running out
- New migraine drugs no better than cheap painkillers: big study
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs again denied bail in sex trafficking case
- Brewers clinch division title as MLB playoff race heats up
- Man City blunted by 'giant' Inter in Champions League stalemate
- US stocks dip despite larger Fed interest rate cut
- Man City held by Inter as PSG pinch win in Champions League
- All Blacks recall Beauden Barrett for Australia Test
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill 20, wound 450
- Spurs late show saves Postecoglou blushes at Coventry
- PSG snatch late goal to beat Champions League debutants Girona
- Gittens' late double gives Dortmund Champions League win at Brugge
- Man City blunted by Inter in Champions League stalemate
- Hidden talent: French Olympic star Marchand opts for disguise
- MrBeast named in California lawsuit over 'Beast Games' show
- Gauff splits with Gilbert as coach after 14-month run
- Hundreds of thousands at risk in Sudan's El-Fasher: UN
- Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty to new sex crime charge
- Venezuelan opposition candidate says letter conceding election was coerced
- Ukraine official claims Russian advance in Kursk has been 'stopped'
- X update allows app to bypass Brazil ban: internet providers
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill 14, wound 450
- US Fed makes aggressive rate cut, weeks before election
- Arsenal's Odegaard faces lengthy injury absence
- India coal expansion risks massive methane growth: report
- China the top challenge in US history, top diplomat says
- US Fed makes larger half-point cut in first reduction since 2020
- Ronaldo's Al Nassr appoint former AC Milan boss Pioli
- Ainslie 'relieved' as British book place in Louis Vuitton Cup final
- Struggling Roma replace sacked icon De Rossi with Ivan Juric
- Women's NBA will add 15th team in Portland in 2026
- Brazil fires need harsher punishment: environmental police boss
- Boeing to start large temporary furloughs amid Seattle strike
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill nine, wound 300
- 'Emergency' declared over falling UK butterfly numbers
- McIlroy outlines threats to golf peace deal
- Stock markets, dollar slip before US rate decision
- Russian advance in Kursk 'stopped': Ukraine official to AFP
- UN members demand end to 'unlawful' Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories
- Snapchat pushes 'safer' platform image, but not everyone agrees
- Three dead, 100 wounded in new wave of Lebanon device explosions
- So where does the oceans' plastic waste come from?
- Allied war heroes buried in Netherlands... 80 years on
- Marsh coy over Australia's choice to open alongside Head
- New London sculpture pays tribute to trans community
- Lebanon doctors tell of horror after pager blasts
- McIlroy eyes Wentworth glory after Irish Open collapse
- Italy seen overtaking France as world's largest wine producer
RBGPF | 5.79% | 60.5 | $ | |
BCC | 1.33% | 137.06 | $ | |
JRI | 0.45% | 13.44 | $ | |
BCE | 3.09% | 35.61 | $ | |
CMSC | 0.02% | 25.055 | $ | |
NGG | -0.46% | 70.05 | $ | |
SCS | 0.71% | 14.11 | $ | |
CMSD | -0.12% | 24.98 | $ | |
RIO | -0.02% | 62.91 | $ | |
RELX | -0.82% | 47.37 | $ | |
RYCEF | 1.37% | 6.55 | $ | |
GSK | -0.31% | 42.43 | $ | |
VOD | 0.49% | 10.23 | $ | |
BTI | -0.34% | 37.88 | $ | |
AZN | 0.06% | 78.58 | $ | |
BP | -0.37% | 32.43 | $ |
Standoff at strategic Ukraine river eyed by Russian troops
On the municipal beach at Nikopol in southern Ukraine, barbed wire, sand bags and other defences have replaced children playing on the sand.
Bang opposite, the Russians control the other bank of the Dnipro, the river that divides Ukraine between east and west.
Planted in the sand is a slightly rusty sign asking people to pay attention -- a polite warning requesting not to disturb a neighbour relaxing on a towel, to keep a ball under control.
It is a reminder of carefree days before February 24 when Russia invaded Ukraine.
Then at the beginning of March, Russian troops captured Energodar, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, located just opposite Nikopol.
Clashes at the plant raised the spectre of a catastrophe similar to that of Chernobyl in 1986.
But apart from a burned out administrative building, the six reactors seemed intact when Russian troops took journalists on a tour.
For Nikopol's residents, the broad expanse of the Dnipro has become a natural border with the Russians.
"It's forbidden to enter the water. It's too dangerous," a soldier told AFP.
On the beach, everything appears ready to take on enemy soldiers if they decide to cross the river, with barbed wire and sand bags stacked high.
- Repeated setbacks -
At a nearby sports club, the owner Alexander Zagrydny, has set up a telescope that allows members to survey the other bank.
"We no longer see Russian armoured vehicles. We're a bit relieved," he said.
But he's frustrated that he can no longer sail.
"I cannot imagine my life without the Dnipro. I have been navigating it since I was a child," sighed the athletic 50-something whose wife left Nikopol with other residents to avoid the risk of war.
Control of the Dnipro was seen as a major Kremlin objective in the first days of the war.
Some 2,300-kilometres long, the river, which rises in Russia before meandering past Belarus, travels more than 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) through Ukraine to the Black Sea.
"Once you control the points of passage along the Dnipro, that gives you real freedom of action between the east and west of Ukraine," said a Western military expert at the end of February when the Russian army seemed poised to conquer Kyiv.
But Russian troops met with repeated setbacks on the northern front and withdrew to concentrate on Donbas, the eastern territory where Russian-backed separatists have been at war with Kyiv since 2014, and on the south.
- 'Defensive boundary' -
"While before there was perhaps talk about how Russia would move up to the Dnipro trying to lock that down and proceed westward, now it looks more like a defensive boundary that can help Russia fortify what it already has," said Andrew Lohsen, an analyst for the the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
To take the Dnipro river cities of Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro, whose pre-war populations numbered 800,000 people and one million respectively, "would be very difficult combat considering how poorly they failed in other attempts to take cities," he said.
Unless of course, the Russians destroy these cities like the southern port of Mariupol, Lohsen said, pointing out that Zaporizhzhia has one of the six hydroelectric dams on the river, whose destruction would trigger catastrophic consequences as the Energodar nuclear power plant lies dozens of kilometres downstream.
Anatoliy Kovalyov, the rector of the Odessa National University of Economy, said the Dnipro is a lifeline for Ukraine and accounts for 10 percent of total electrical output.
Thirty bridges link the east, rich in mining resources, with western Ukraine, where they are processed and transformed.
"Ukraine's entire economy depends on transport" between the two banks, Kovalyov said.
"The most important task" for the Ukrainian forces now is to "protect the bridges", which will guarantee the preservation of a "solid and united state."
O.Bulka--BTB