Pro-Russian authorities in Kherson announced Friday the imposition of a 24-hour curfew in the regional capital to allow the Russian Armed Forces to «defend the city.»
This was reported by the Russian-imposed deputy governor of Kherson, Kirill Stremousov, who released a video on his Telegram channel in which he insisted on the order to evacuate civilians to the left bank of the Dnieper River.
«Terrorist attacks are possible, provocations are possible (…) We must give the military the opportunity to continue the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine,» Stremousov remarked, as reported by Russian official agencies.
Therefore, the emergency measure comes in a context marked by a new evacuation order of Kherson announced this Friday by the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, in response to the major counteroffensive launched by the Ukrainian forces.
Russia completed a first phase of the evacuation a week ago, but a few days later the pro-Russian authorities decided to extend the evacuation perimeter by an additional 15 kilometers.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Army continues to advance in the region, annexed to Russia at the end of September after a referendum not recognized by a large part of the international community, and even announced that the Russian flag had stopped flying on the facade of the provincial administration building.
However, the authorities in Kiev remarked already on Thursday that they did not quite trust the announced Russian withdrawal, and did not rule out that Moscow could be plotting some «trick» to force some kind of «provocation» that would serve to accuse Ukraine of attacking the civilian population.
