KYIV — Russia and
Ukraine on Sunday accused each other
of provoking fighting in Kherson, after a video showed clashes in the center of
the occupied Ukrainian city the previous evening.
اضافة اعلان
The Ukrainian
army is leading a counter-offensive to retake the southern city of Kherson,
which was seized by the Russian army in the first weeks of the invasion.
Russian official
media Vesti-Crimea broadcast a video on Saturday evening showing an exchange of
fire around two armored vehicles near Kherson train station.
The
Russian-installed administration of Kherson said later in the day it had
“destroyed” a group of attackers.
“There was a
clash in the center of Kherson between sections of the Russian armed forces
patrolling the streets of the city and an unidentified group of people,” the
administration said on Telegram.
On Sunday
morning, Ukrainian southern army command spokeswoman Natalia Gumeniuk said,
“Yesterday’s shootings and explosions in Kherson are provocations by the
occupiers.”
Gumeniuk added
she had previously “warned that provocations are planned in the south between
September 17 and 20 ... to damage the image of the armed forces of Ukraine”.
Ukrainian
presidential aide
Mykhaylo Podolyak blamed the shootings on “growing tensions”
between different pro-Moscow factions preparing to flee amid news of the
Ukrainian army’s advances.
Kirill
Stremousov, a pro-Moscow official in Kherson, said the city was “calm” on
Sunday morning.
Kyiv is “trying
to attack but without any results”, he said.
“We won’t say
that everything is smooth and there is no problem in the Kherson region ...
(but) everything will be fine.”
There have been a series
of targeted attacks against pro-Russian officials in Kherson and in other
occupied areas in recent weeks.
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