The head of the Russian military-civil administration of the occupied town of Nova Kakhovka, in the Kherson region, has ordered the immediate evacuation of the population and the authorities in view of the possible arrival of the Ukrainian military in this town, on the eastern bank of the Dnieper river, provided that they manage to cross a bridge badly damaged by the fighting.
«Today, the administration is the number one target of terrorist attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces», explained Pavel Filipchuk in an emergency speech reported by the Russian agency TASS, who warned that the town could be the scene of «hostilities or shelling» from the other bank of the river.
The locality and its surroundings are now turning into fortified zones to resist the Ukrainian advance while the citizens begin a very long journey eastwards, towards the Russian locality of Tuapsé, in the Krasnodar region, 500 kilometers west of Kherson and passing the Crimean peninsula.
Until a couple of days ago, the Nova Kakhovka bridge was one of the two remaining bridges across the river, considered the main obstacle to be overcome by the Ukrainian forces to continue their advance to the east of Kherson and the Crimean border.
However, this infrastructure has suffered significant damage along with the other bridge still standing, the Antonivski bridge, closer to Kherson city, on the western bank and already liberated by Ukraine, but in an almost unsustainable state.
This morning, the pro-Russian authorities in Kherson declared the city of Guenichesk as the new «temporary administrative capital» of the Ukrainian territory, occupied and annexed by Moscow.
Guenichesk is located at the eastern end of Kherson, on the shores of the Sea of Azov and approximately 20 kilometers north of the border of the Crimean peninsula, also annexed by Russia and whose incorporation was ratified in 2014 in a referendum considered, like that of Kherson, as illegal by Ukraine and its allies.
