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image source, Russia 24
Russian television channels showed images of people gathering to cross the Dnieper River.
Tens of thousands of civilians and designated Russian officials are being transferred out of the Kherson region of southern Ukraine.
Russian-installed local leader Vladimir Saldo said 50,000 to 60,000 civilians would leave four towns on the west bank of the Dnieper River in a “gradual and organized displacement.”
It is not clear how many inhabitants are being transferred, but Russian television showed several people near the Dnieper.
Kherson was the first major city to fall to Russian forces when they invaded Ukraine in February.
However, in just a few weeks, the Ukrainian army recaptured territory in the north of the region and advanced as far as 30 km south along the Dnieper, threatening to ensnare Russian troops.
Tense situation”
Hours before the evacuation began, Russia’s new military commander in Ukraine, General Sergei Surovikin, he described the situation in the city of Kherson as difficult.
Speaking on Russian television, the general said that Ukrainian troops were preparing a Himars rocket attack on the city’s infrastructure and homes.
image source, EPA
General Surovikin – a veteran of the Chechen and Syrian wars – has a reputation for using harsh methods.
Surovikin said that “the Russian army will above all ensure the safe evacuation of the population.”
“Overall, the situation in the special military operations zone can be described as tense,” he said.
Surovikin, who has a reputation for using harsh methods, said the barrage of rockets from Ukraine had damaged the Antonivsky Bridge in Jerson and the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Dam, blocking traffic along those key arteries.
This has created problems in the supply of essential services, such as food, water and electricity deliveries, he said.
The general also said that the Ukrainians were launching constant attacks on a wide front, in the Kupiansk and Lyman areas in the east and, in the south, on the Mykolaiv-Krivyi Rih front.
A Russian-installed local official, Kirill Stremousov, echoed the Russian general’s rare admission about the “difficult” situation e Jerson.
He warned the residents of Kherson that “in the very near future” Ukrainian troops would launch an assault on the city: “Please take my words seriously, I am talking about evacuating as quickly as possible,” he said in the messaging service. Telegram.
“No one is going to back down, but we also want to save your life. Please move as quickly as possible to the west bank (of the river),” he added.
image source, Getty Images
Ukraine said it had recaptured more than 400 square kilometers of territory in less than a week.
For his part, Vladimir Saldo, who was appointed governor of the region by Moscow, told Russian television that no one was about to surrender, but that it was “undesirable” for residents to remain in a city facing military action.
Saldo accused the Ukrainian forces of preparing for a large-scale offensive and planning to destroy the Kakhovka dam, flooding the area.
And he said that “in the last two days, More than 5,000 people left Kherson.”
Earlier this month, Kherson’s exiled interim mayor said there were only 100,000 residents left in the city, which had a pre-war population of 320,000, many of whom had fled Russian occupation.
Ivan Fedorov, the mayor of Melitopol, also occupied by Russia, warned that Kherson’s civilians face forced deportation and are deprived of their homes so that Russia can populate the city with “soldiers and traitors.”
Last month Russia annexed Kherson, along with three other Ukrainian regions, and the Kremlin claims these are now part of Russia, a claim that is rejected internationally.
The transfer or deportation of civilians from an occupied territory, by an occupying power, is considered a war crime.
Ukraine said in September that 2.5 million people had been forcibly deported from Ukraine to Russia.
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