Russia preparing to surrender Kherson
According to the commander of the Russian troops in the zone of the so-called "special operation" in Ukraine, General Sergei Surovikin, "the situation in Kherson is very difficult."
"We will act consciously, in a timely manner, not excluding the adoption of the most difficult decisions," the general said on the air of the TV channel Russia 24.
According to Surovikin, "the enemy strikes at critical infrastructure," so "further plans and actions regarding the city of Kherson itself will depend on the evolving military-tactical situation."
Surovikin said that the Ukrainian forces, using HIMARS missiles, "damaged the Antonovsky Bridge and the dam of the Nova Kakhovka hydroelectric power station."
Surovikin and the representatives of the Russia-installed authorities of the region said there is the possibility of "the enemy's use of prohibited ammunition at the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station".
Several Russian and Ukrainian media outlets, as well as experts and military commanders, point out that Russian troops are actively preparing for the battles for Kherson. The Russian military command decided to evacuate the population of occupied territories of the Kherson region to Crimea and the Krasnodar Territory.
"The Ukrainian side is amassing forces for a large-scale offensive in the Mykolaiv and Kryvyi Rih directions," said Russia-appointed governor of the Kherson region Volodymyr Saldo on his Telegram channel. "The Russian Federation has formed a military group to repel this offensive."
Saldo begins his video appeal to the residents of Kherson and the region with a paradoxical statement: "Dear residents of the Kherson region! You all know that Ukraine has declared an all-out, uncompromising war on Russia," completely ignoring the actual course of the tragic events that began in the early morning of February 24 with a full-scale invasion of Russian troops in the territory of Ukraine and massive rocket attacks by the Russian military on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.
"There is an immediate danger of flooding due to the planned destruction of the dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station and the discharge of water from the power plants upstream of the Dnieper," said Saldo.
"In such a situation, I made a difficult but right decision to announce the organized relocation of the civilian population of the Berislavsky, Belozersky, Snigirevsky and Aleksandrovsky districts to the left bank of the Dnieper."
Referring to the Russian deputy prime minister, Marat Khusnullin, Vladimir Saldo promised those, who decided to move, housing certificates for free accommodation on the left bank of the Dnieper or "further in the regions of Russia."
"I ask everyone to remain calm, not to listen to alarmists," Saldo urged the Kherson residents at the end of his address.