Kherson, a large city in southern Ukraine recently taken over by Kyiv, found itself again on Thursday under intense Russian strikes which killed two people and caused a generalized blackout of electricity in the middle of winter.
• Read also: The city of Kherson “completely” deprived of electricity due to a bombardment
• Read also: At least one dead in ‘massive’ Ukrainian bombing of Donetsk
• Read also: Ukraine claims to have destroyed a swarm of drones targeting Kyiv
Several bombardments shook Thursday this city located on the Dnieper river, about 500 km from Kyiv as the crow flies, affecting in particular its center.
“The enemy again struck the center of the city, 100 meters from the building of the regional administration” already bombarded the day before, said on Telegram the deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential administration Kyrylo Tymoshenko, reporting ” two deaths”.
The strike “hit a building used by local authorities, volunteer groups and humanitarian organizations to deliver aid to residents of Kherson,” UN humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine Denise Brown said in a statement. communicated.
She said she was “shocked” by this “tragic” attack which notably cost the life of a woman “who worked as an ambulance for the Ukrainian Red Cross”.
On Twitter, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Mirjana Spoljaric called on the belligerents to “spare the personnel and the goods” of the Red Cross.
For his part, the regional governor Yaroslav Yanouchevych indicated a few hours later that a new “heavy bombardment” targeted a “critical infrastructure site”. Since then, “Kherson has been completely without electricity,” he posted on Telegram.
Since October and a series of humiliating setbacks, Russia has targeted with its missiles and drones priority energy infrastructure in Kherson as in the rest of the country.
Millions of Ukrainians now have only a few hours of electricity a day, and suffer from heating and water cuts just as winter sets in.
Liberated by the Ukrainian army a month ago, the city of Kherson has since been the target of Russian strikes almost daily.
“We have injuries almost every day and deaths almost every day. And this situation will continue for a long time”, noted a regional official Yuri Sobolevsky quoted Thursday by the site of the public television Suspilné.
Faced with regular strikes and very difficult living conditions, around 11,000 residents have left Kherson since the announcement of voluntary evacuations by the Ukrainian authorities following the reconquest of the city on November 11, according to the Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.
“Unfortunately, constant bombardments prevent the regional capital from fully returning to normal life,” she regretted.
Russian forces occupied the city of Kherson which then had a population of almost 300,000 and almost all of the eponymous region shortly after the start of their invasion of Ukraine launched on February 24.
Its recapture by the Ukrainian army led to a withdrawal of Russian forces towards the left bank of the Dnieper river. But before this retreat, the Russians destroyed basic public service infrastructure in the city, according to local authorities.
The situation on the front in eastern Ukraine remains very tense and fierce fighting continues.
In the Donetsk region, “the directions of Bakhmout and Avdiivka remain the epicenter of the fighting,” Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Maliar said Thursday.
In that of Zaporijjia (center-east), a 65-year-old man was killed in a Russian bombardment in Marganets, which also injured three in this town located east of Nikopol, along the Dnieper river, announced the regional administration.
For their part, the pro-Russian separatist authorities reported a Ukrainian bombardment of Donetsk, “the most massive since 2014”, the year when this city came under the control of these rebels supported by Moscow.
At least one civilian was killed there and nine injured, said Alexei Kulemzin, the head of the Russian administration in Donetsk.
Internationally, the UN has announced that it recorded 441 summary executions of civilians during the first months of the invasion by Russian forces, in the regions of Kyiv, Cherniguiv and Sumy, which constitute “probable war crimes”. .
“The real figures are probably higher,” added the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, presenting a report in Geneva.
Finally, the European Parliament recognized Thursday as genocide the Holodomor, famine in Ukraine caused by the Soviets 90 years ago which resulted in the death of several million people. Moscow rejects this qualifier of genocide.