Pro-Russian authorities in Russia’s annexed Kherson region of southern Ukraine on Saturday urged civilians to evacuate the region’s capital “immediately” in the face of advancing forces from Kyiv.
• Also read: Ukrainian PM warns of ‘migration tsunami’ if Russian strikes continue
• Also read: Ukraine: New Russian strikes cause power outages in several regions
“All civilian residents of Kherson must leave the city immediately,” said the pro-Russian occupation administration of the region via telegram on Saturday, referring to a “tense situation at the front” and “increased danger from massive shelling”.
Evacuations to the left bank of the Dnieper, which borders Kherson, have been underway since Wednesday. But Saturday’s call takes on added urgency. About 25,000 people have already been evacuated, Kherson official Kirill Stremousov told Russian news agency Interfax on Saturday.
If Kyiv gains ground, it still suffers severe aerial reprisals, with Russian rocket fire all over its territory.
“The aggressor continues to terrorize our country. During the night, the attacker launched a massive attack with 36 rocket attacks,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media on Saturday.
“The main target of Russian terrorists is energy,” he assured on Saturday evening, urging his fellow citizens: “Please use energy even more conscientiously than before, the stability of our public energy industry depends on it, in any city or district of Ukraine.” .
One million Ukrainian households without electricity
More than a million households in Ukraine are without power after Russian strikes in the country’s energy infrastructure, Ukrainian Presidency adviser Kyrylo Tymoshenko said on Saturday.
“To date, 672,000 subscribers have been disconnected in Khmelnytskyi Oblast, 188,400 in Mikolayiv Oblast, 102,000 in Volyn Oblast, 242,000 in Cherkasy Oblast, 174,790 in Rivne Oblast, 61,913 in Kirovograd Oblast and 10,500 in Odessa Oblast,” he counted.
“If there is no electricity, power or water in Ukraine, it could trigger a new migration tsunami,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Chmygal warned in Sunday’s edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.
Russia wants “to give Ukraine a cold winter where people could literally freeze to death. This could lead to a planned humanitarian catastrophe the likes of which Europe has not seen since World War II,” warned Mr Chmygal, expected at the German-Ukrainian Economic Forum in Berlin on Monday.
fear for our lives
Kherson residents boarded a train bound for southern Russia at a station in Dzhankoy in northern Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014, an AFP journalist noted on Friday.
“We are leaving Kherson because heavy shelling has started there, we are afraid for our lives,” said Valentina Yelkina, a pensioner who is traveling with her daughter.
Another Kherson resident, Yelena Bekesheva, 70, said she was on her way to Moscow. “We didn’t make the decision right away [de partir]but then we were invited by our friends and relatives,” she told AFP.
In a video on Friday evening, President Zelenskyy congratulated himself on his army’s “good results” in this very strategic region, where, he said, more than thirty Russian armored vehicles in particular were captured.
Kherson is the first major city captured by Russian forces at the start of their offensive launched on February 24.
On the ground, adviser to the Ukrainian Presidency, Mr. Tymoshenko, reported on Friday that “88 towns were taken over” by Russian forces in the Kherson region.
Energy restrictions are being “enforced” in several Ukrainian regions, including the capital Kyiv and its region, according to operator Ukrenergo.
At the same time, Ukrainians have already voluntarily reduced their electricity consumption by an average of 5 to 20 percent on certain days and in certain regions, Ukrenergo boss Volodymyr Kudrytsky told AFP.
Two people were killed on Saturday during Ukrainian strikes against the Russian region of Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, the region’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, also said on Saturday.
The shelling was aimed at “civilian infrastructure” in the city of Chebekino, Gladkov said on Telegram. “About 15,000 people were left without power,” he said.
In mid-October, Russia denounced a “significant increase” in Ukrainian fire on several Russian border regions, including those of Belgorod, but also those of Kursk and Briansk.