Up to 70,000 people currently in a strip 15 kilometers deep to the east on the left bank of the Dnieper will be displaced, the Russian authorities have announced.
The Russian occupation authorities in Kherson, in the south of Ukraine, announced on Tuesday that they had started the displacement of thousands of additional people in this region where kyiv forces are carrying out an offensive. “We will resettle and transfer up to 70,000 peoplecurrently lying in a 15-kilometer-deep strip to the east on the left bank of the Dnieper River, Moscow-installed Kherson governor Vladimir Saldo told Russian radio program Solovyov Live.
Last week, the Russian occupation forces had already announced that 70,000 civilians had left their homes located to the west on the right bank of the river and closer to the front line.
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Vladimir Saldo affirmed that the new evacuations had been decided in the face of the risk of a “possible missile attack” on a dam located on the river and whose destruction would lead to the “left bank flood“. “We have already started“these new evacuations and displaced persons will be transported”deeperin Kherson orin other regions of Russia“, he said, without providing further details.
Set up a “defense in depth”
Monday evening, Vladimir Saldo had affirmed that the evacuation of this 15 kilometer deep strip would also allow the Russian army to set up a “defense in depth to repel the Ukrainian attack“, thus seeming to envisage the possibility that the forces of kyiv cross the Dnipro.
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The Kherson region is partially controlled by Russia, which last month annexed the portion it conquered, along with three other areas of Ukraine under its control. kyiv forces have been leading an offensive for several weeks to retake the Kherson region, advancing from west to east.
It was because of the territorial gains made by the Ukrainian soldiers that the Russian occupation authorities asked the inhabitants of the right bank in mid-October to leave their homes to cross the river.
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