KYIV — Pro-Russian authorities on Saturday
urged residents in the southern Kherson region, which
Moscow claims to have
annexed, to leave the main city “immediately” in the face of Kyiv’s advancing
counter-offensive.
اضافة اعلان
It comes as President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia
launched 36 rockets overnight in a “massive attack” on Ukraine, following
reported strikes on energy infrastructure that resulted in power outages across
the country.
Kyiv’s forces have been advancing along the west
bank of the Dnieper River, towards the Kherson region’s eponymous main city.
The first major city to fall to Moscow’s troops,
retaking it would be a key prize in Ukraine’s counter-offensive.
In recent days, Russia has been moving residents in the
region — which Moscow claims to have annexed in September — in efforts
described as “deportations” by Kyiv.
“Due to the tense situation on the front, the
increased danger of mass shelling of the city and the threat of terrorist
attacks, all civilians must immediately leave the city and cross to the left
bank of the Dnieper River,” the region’s pro-Russian authorities said on social
media.
A Moscow-installed official in Kherson,
Kirill Stremousov, told Russian news agency Interfax on Saturday that around 25,000
people had made the crossing.
Meanwhile more than a million households in Ukraine
were left without electricity following Russian strikes on energy facilities
across the country, the deputy head of the Ukrainian presidency Kyrylo
Tymoshenko said on Saturday.
Fresh Russian strikes targeted energy infrastructure
in Ukraine’s west, the national operator said earlier, with officials in
several regions of the war-scarred country reporting power outages.
Russians “carried out another missile attack on energy
facilities of the main networks of Ukraine’s western regions”, Ukraine’s energy
operator Ukrenergo said on social media.
Power outages were reported among others in the
northwestern Volyn region, parts of the southwestern Odessa region and the city
of Khmelnitskyi in western
Ukraine with local authorities reiterating calls to
reduce energy use.
“Saturday in Ukraine starts with a barrage of
Russian missiles aimed at critical civilian infrastructure,” Ukraine’s Foreign
Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter, urging Kyiv’s allies to hasten the
delivery of air defence systems.
According to Ukraine’s air force, Moscow’s troops on
Saturday fired 17 cruise missiles by aircraft from southern Russia and at least
16 Kalibr cruise missiles from ships in the Black Sea.
Ukraine’s authorities have called on residents to
reduce power consumption amid the attacks with some parts of Ukraine reducing
their electricity use by up to 20 percent, according to Ukrenergo.
“We see savings in different regions and on
different days the level of voluntary consumption reduction ranges from five to
20 percent on average,” Ukrenergo chief Volodymyr Kudrytskyi said in written
comments to AFP.
He added that while these were “significant volumes”
for Ukraine’s energy system, they were not enough for regions where the
infrastructure “suffered the most damage” and Ukrenergo must resort to “forced
restrictions”.
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