KYIV — Russian President
Vladimir Putin on Wednesday
declared martial law in four regions of Ukraine recently annexed by Moscow as
local officials in a southern-held city pulled out with Ukraine troops
advancing.
اضافة اعلان
Putin’s decree to introduce military rule in the
Moscow-controlled regions also gives additional power to authorities in Russian
border areas and comes after a string of battlefield defeats.
“We are working on solving very complex large-scale
tasks to ensure security and protect the future of Russia,” Putin said.
The decree gives greater powers to limit movement
to, from and within the areas and allows for the residents of those territories
to be moved to “safe zones”.
Pro-Kremlin officials meanwhile said they were
pulling out of the key southern Ukraine city of
Kherson on Wednesday, as Kyiv’s
forces advanced on territory in Russian hands since the war’s earliest days.
Kherson was the first major city to fall to Moscow’s
troops since the February invasion began and retaking it would be a crucial
prize in Ukraine’s counter-offensive.
“The entire administration is already moving today,”
to the eastern bank of the Dnieper River, the Kherson region’s Moscow-appointed
head, Vladimir Saldo, told Russian state television.
But Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian presidency’s chief
of staff, called the moves a “propaganda show” and accused Russia of “trying to
scare the people of Kherson”.
Kyiv’s recapturing of swathes of its territory in
the east and parts of the south has however been followed by missile and drone
strikes that have demolished large parts of Ukraine’s power grid ahead of
winter.
In a third day of attacks on the Ukrainian capital,
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said “several Russian rockets” had been downed over
the city after AFP reporters heard several loud explosions in the city center.
Evacuations by ferry
Kherson is located on the
western bank of the Dnieper, the same side where
Ukrainian troops have been
moving forward in a counter-offensive that began in August.
Saldo said the pull-out, along with the organized
movement of civilians from the city, was a precaution and vowed that Russian
forces would continue to fight against Ukraine.
Pro-Russian officials have said civilians would only
be allowed to leave towards Russia or Russian-held parts of Ukraine.
However, Ukrainian forces have targeted bridges
across the river to disrupt supply lines so Russian-installed officials said
the evacuations were being done with ferries.
Russia’s Rossiya 24 state television channel showed
images of people waiting to board ferries to cross the river.
Local officials said they were planning to move up
to 60,000 civilians from the city of Kherson over a period of around six days.
Russia’s military commander for Ukraine operations,
Gen. Sergey Surovikin has said the Russian army will ensure “the safe
evacuation of the population” from Kherson.
Speaking to Russian state TV on Tuesday, he accused
Ukraine of strikes on civilian infrastructure in the region that “create a
direct threat to the lives of residents”.
Nuclear plant staff detained
Ukraine has re-captured
occupied territory in the east of the country in recent weeks.
Its advance in the south has been far slower but has
been gaining momentum in recent days.
There have also been some Russian advances.
Russian forces on Tuesday claimed to have retaken
territory from Ukrainian troops in the eastern
Kharkiv region.
It was Moscow’s first announced capture of a village
there since being nearly entirely pushed out of the region last month.
Moscow has also been building up its defenses in the
territory it still holds.
Russia’s Wagner private military group said it was
working on building a fortified line of defense in the Lugansk region.
“It is a multi-level and layered defense,” the
group’s founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said on the social media of his company
Concord.
Russian forces meanwhile continue to occupy the
Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — Europe’s largest.
Petro Kotin, head of Ukraine’s nuclear energy agency
Energoatom, told AFP on Wednesday that
Russian forces were holding “about 50”
plant employees in captivity.
EU to sanction Iran
Ukraine has scrambled to rebuild damaged energy
facilities across the country following a series of Russian strikes.
The government has warned of the risk of blackouts, saying about 30
percent of Ukraine’s power stations have been destroyed.
Drones bombarded Kyiv on Monday, leaving five dead, in what the
presidency described as an attack of Russian desperation after a string of battlefield
losses.
An energy facility in the city was hit by strikes on Tuesday, leaving two
people dead.
Kyiv and its Western allies have accused Moscow of using Iranian-made
drones in the strikes, a move President
Volodymyr Zelensky portrayed as a sign
of Russia’s failure.
Ukraine said Wednesday it had shot down 223 Iranian-made drones since
mid-September.
But the Kremlin has said it has no knowledge of its army using Iranian
drones in Ukraine and Tehran has said the claims that it is providing Russia
with weapons are “baseless”.
Nabila
Massrali, spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, said the EU
has “sufficient evidence” that Tehran was supplying Russia with drones and
would prepare fresh sanctions on Iran.
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