Shelling of Kherson during the evacuation: one person was killed

At least one person was killed and two were injured as a result of shelling in Kherson on Thursday afternoon. This was reported by the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, which accused the Russian military of shelling. As stated in the department’s statement, they carried out targeted strikes on the city during evacuation measures – a number of districts of Kherson were under water after the destruction of the Kakhovskaya HPP.

Several villages on the right bank of the Dnieper were also shelled, four people were reportedly injured.

The head of the regional administration Oleksandr Prokudin reported shelling of the central part of Kherson and the embankment earlier. Ukrainian mass media and Telegram channels publish a video of the shelling of Kherson.

Acting appointed by Russia the head of the Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, claims that two people were killed and two were wounded during the shelling of the civilian evacuation point from the city of Golaya Prystan. He blamed Ukraine for the shelling. The Ukrainian side did not comment on this message.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Kherson on Thursday morning. Coordination meeting on the liquidation of the consequences of the explosion of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric dam, and also visited the crossing where evacuation is carried out.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has no plans yet to visit the Russian-controlled left-bank part of the Kherson region, which also suffered from the consequences of the destruction of the HPP dam. The press secretary of President Dmytro Peskov informed journalists about this.

The dam was destroyed on the night of June 6. Both sides blame each other for what happened. Water from the Kakhovsky reservoir began to quickly flood coastal areas, including populated areas. 600 square kilometers of the region are under water now, of which about 30% is the right-bank part, the rest is the left bank, Prokudin’s message on the Telegram channel says.

The evacuation of residents of the affected areas is reported by both the Russian and Ukrainian sides. The Russian-appointed mayor of occupied Novaya Kakhovka, near which the HPP is located, reported on Thursday the death of five people after the destruction of the station. Earlier, Leontiev spoke about the seven missing people in the city.

According to the Ukrainian State Emergency Service, the water level in the areas of Ukraine flooded after the destruction of the Kakhovskaya HPP dam continues to rise, but more slowly than before. More than 50 settlements were completely or partially flooded on both banks of the Dnieper.

Several Russian independent publications reported, citing volunteers and local online communities, that in the city of Alyoshka and other settlements on the Russian-occupied left bank of the Dnieper, hundreds of local residents were stuck on roofs and attics as a result of flooding, writes the BBC’s Russian service.

The head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Dmitry Kuleba, and the coordinator of the UN system in Ukraine, Deniz Brown, agreed that the UN will form groups to provide humanitarian aid and evacuate people in the occupied territories on the left bank of the Dnieper, provided that Russia provides access and security guarantees. This was reported by the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. The Russian side has not yet commented on this.