The missiles destroyed shops, carpeting surrounding streets with glass shards, rubble, and twisted metal sheets. In the east, three Russian missiles exploded on Thursday morning near the central market in Kupiansk, a major railway junction city that Ukrainian forces recaptured during their big advance there in September. Video footage provided by state emergency services showed rescuers pulling out an 11-year-old boy who Kim said had spent six hours trapped under the destroyed building. Regional governor Vitaly Kim said the top two floors of a five-storey residential building were destroyed and the rest was under rubble. Mykolaiv, the nearest big Ukrainian-held city to Kherson, came under massive Russian bombardment on Thursday, with civilian facilities hit, local officials said. Kyiv says it has recaptured more than 400 square kilometres (155 miles) in the Kherson region in less than a week, with its forces bearing down towards the three-kilometre-long (two-mile-long) Nova Kakhovka dam that provides one of the last river crossings. They have since moved rapidly along the river’s western bank, aiming to cut off thousands of Russian troops from supply lines and potential routes of retreat.
Since the start of October, Ukrainian forces have burst through Russia’s front lines there in their biggest advance in the south since the war began. It controls both the only land route to the Crimean peninsula, and the mouth of the Dnieper, the giant river that bisects Ukraine. Kherson is one of four partially occupied Ukrainian provinces that Russia this month announced it had annexed, and arguably the most strategically important. Others are expected to head to Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014. Russia’s TASS news agency reported a first group of civilians fleeing from Kherson was expected to arrive in Russia’s Rostov region as soon as Friday. That includes the regional capital, the only major Ukrainian city Russia has captured intact since its February 24 invasion. Residents on the west bank of the Dnieper River had priority, he said. “We suggested that all residents of the Kherson region, if they wish, to protect themselves from the consequences of missile strikes … go to other regions,” he said, advising people to “leave with their children”. “As such, the leadership of the Kherson administration has decided to provide Kherson families with the option to travel to other regions of the Russian Federation to rest and study.” “Every day, the cities of Kherson region are subjected to missile attacks,” Saldo said.
In a video statement on Telegram, Vladimir Saldo had publicly asked for Moscow’s help transporting civilians to safer areas. The Russian-installed governor of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region earlier told residents to take their children and flee, after Kyiv said it had retaken five settlements in the southern region. “The government took the decision to organise assistance for the departure of residents of the region,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said on Thursday. In a sign of Moscow’s weakening hold on territory it claims to have annexed, Moscow said it would help residents evacuate amid an advancing Ukrainian counteroffensive. People from Ukraine’s southern Kherson region are expected to begin arriving in Russia after a Moscow-installed official in the partially occupied area suggested residents should leave for their own safety.
0 kommentar(er)
