Russian occupation authorities in the southern region of Kherson in Ukraine, annexed by Moscow, on Friday accused Kyiv forces, which they immediately denied, of killing four people by shelling the Antonovskiy Bridge over the Dnieper River, used for evacuations.
“Four people were killed,” said Kirill Stremoussov, deputy head of the Russian occupation in Kherson, on Telegram. “The city of Kherson, like a fortress, is preparing its defense,” he added.
The Ukrainian army quickly denied having targeted civilians: “We are not hitting critical infrastructure, we are not hitting peaceful settlements and the local population,” the spokeswoman for the Southern Command told Ukrainian television. army, Natalia Goumenyuk.
The pro-Russian forces, for their part, urged civilians to move to the left bank of the Dnieper while the Ukrainian forces are carrying out a counter-offensive. Kyiv has called this kind of population displacement “deportation”.
The Russian occupation administration had earlier claimed that Kyiv fired “12 (long-range rockets) HIMARS at a civilian crossing point near the Antonovskiy Bridge” and that Russian air defenses shot down eleven.
Russian television broadcast images of a damaged car and a traffic jam of vehicles waiting to cross the river.
Thursday, Mr. Stremousov said that 15,000 people had crossed the river to take refuge on the left bank, during evacuations organized by pro-Russian forces. He had assured that Russia would not abandon Kherson, the first major city in Ukraine to fall into the hands of Russian forces in March, shortly after the start of their offensive.
“Kherson will resist to the last” man, he had declared.
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin instituted martial law in the Ukrainian regions of Kherson, Lugansk, Donetsk and Zaporizhia, annexed in September by Moscow, but which the Russian army does not fully control.