Ukraine makes ‘biggest breakthrough’ on Southern front in latest blow to Putin days after he declared the region Russian

UKRAINIAN forces have achieved their biggest breakthrough on the southern front since the war as they are now storming towards the key city of Kherson.

Brave soldiers have reportedly made rapid progress along the Dnipro River on Monday, encircling thousands of Russian troops.

Kyiv gave no official confirmation of the gains, but Russian sources acknowledged that a Ukrainian tank offensive had advanced dozens of miles along the river's west bank, recapturing a number of villages along the way.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence claimed the milestone advancement after a further 500 Russian troops had been eliminated - taking the total to over 60,000.

The breakthrough mirrors recent Ukrainian successes in the east that have turned the tide in the war against Russia, even as Moscow has tried to raise the stakes by annexing territory, ordering mobilisation and threatening nuclear retaliation.

Images from the eastern city of Izium showed the damage inflicted as a further 23 tanks were destroyed and another 26 armoured vehicles were wiped out in the latest offensive.

It is though that Ukrainians forces currently occupy territory just 20 miles from the city of Kherson, the capital of one of the annexed regions, as they seek to push on.

"The information is tense, let's put it that way, because, yes there were indeed breakthroughs," Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed leader in occupied parts pf Kherson province told Russian state television.

"There's a settlement called Dudchany, right along the Dnipro River, and right there, in that region, there was a breakthrough. There are settlements that are occupied by Ukrainian forces," he said.

Dudchany is around 25 miles south of where the front stood just a day earlier, indicating one of the fastest advances of the war and by far the most rapid in the south.

It is believed that Russian forces had been dug into heavily reinforced positions along a mainly static front line since the early weeks of the invasion, but have lost vital territory in the latest push.

Stanford’s Francis Fukuyama, an expert in military and international policy, exclaimed on Twitter that “a much bigger Russian collapse will unfold in the coming days.”

The advance in the south mirrors the tactics that have brought Kyiv major gains since the start of September in eastern Ukraine, where its forces swiftly seized territory to gain control of Russian supply lines, cutting off larger Russian forces and forcing them to retreat.

Meanwhile, in the south, Ukraine's advance is thought to have targets supply lines for thousands of Russian troops - perhaps as many as 25,000 - where it sent a large contingent to halt a counter-attack Ukraine announced there in August.

Ukraine has already destroyed the main bridges across the Dnipro, forcing Russian forces to use makeshift crossings.

A substantial advance along the river could bring those remaining crossings into artillery range.

"The fact we have broken through the front means that ... the Russian army has already lost the ability to attack, and today or tomorrow it could lose the ability to defend," said Oleh Zhdanov, a military analyst based in Kyiv.

"A month of our work destroying their supplies and reducing the combat effectiveness of this group means that they are functioning on minimal rations in terms of ammunition, fuel and food."

INTERNAL CONFLICT

The latest advancements comes just days after Vladimir Putin was upstaged as he hosted a concert on Moscow's Red Square on Friday to proclaim the provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia to be Russian territory forever.

Merely hours later, Ukraine recaptured Lyman, the main Russian bastion in the north of Donetsk province.

Despite parroted lines by the Russian state, the gains have reportedly opened the way for Ukrainian forces to advance deep into Luhansk province, threatening the main supply routes to territory Moscow captured in some of the war's bloodiest battles in June and July.

Amid the latest reports of Ukraine's battlefield advances, chaos has also continued to ensue back in Russia over the mobilisation, which Putin ordered 10 days ago.

Tens of thousands of Russian men have been called up, while tens of thousands of others, including young men, have fled to escape being called up to fight in the bloody war.  

Some have even resorted to self-inflicting horrific injuries as confidence in the war effort dwindles by the day.  

The internal conflict in Russia has reportedly signalled a turn in the tide for “cancer stricken” Putin who was today described as "desperate” by intelligence experts watching on.

David Petraeus, who served as Director of the CIA under Barack Obama, told ABC: "It can still get worse for Putin and for Russia.

“And even the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield won’t change this at all."