Russia sacks Kherson and takes even the bones of Grigory Potemkin

war drums in Kherson. Ukraine advances on the city and the combat, which is expected door to door, threatens to turn the city of 135.7 km2 in a new Mariupol.

Moscow has been waiting weeks for the siege. That is why, for some time now, it has carried out “relocations” of the city’s population in other regions of Russia. De facto deportations, to which citizens oppose, not only because of the uncertainty of not knowing if they will return, but also because of the constant looting of their personal property by the pro-Russian authorities.

From Jersón they have disappeared, among other belongings, cars, buses, tractors, paintings Y artworkspublish Guardian. The occupation forces have even desecrated the tomb of Potemkin, a Russian war hero who annexed Crimea and founded the city of Odessa. A commander in the Russian army during the 18th century, he wanted to build a ‘new Russia’ for his beloved, Catherine the Great. His tomb was discovered in the city’s cathedral in 1818.

[Ucrania se prepara para el apagón total: tres millones de personas tendrían que ser evacuadas de Kiev]

Thus, from kyiv they fear that, when Russia surrenders the city, there will be absolutely nothing left and its reconstruction will have an inordinate economic cost. Despite the administrative silence that kyiv has established about the campaign on this front, several senior army officials slipped Reuters weeks ago Russia could be preparing the surrender of the city. Situation that, militarily, made sense, since the Russian forces are besieged by the Ukrainian army in the vanguard and by the Dnieper River in the rear.

However, according to other agencies, the maneuvers seem to respond to a reorganization of Putin’s forces on the ground rather than a withdrawal, precisely due to the geographical complexity of the terrain. In fact, several Ukrainian officials have said they fear that the removal of the Russian flag from the Kherson administrative headquarters will ultimately turn out to be a trap.

In the eyes of some citizens, as is the case of Alyona Lapchuk, there are conditions for the city to become a new Mariupol. “Most likely they are preparing for a street-to-street fight. Some Russian soldiers are hiding in the general population, if their strategy fails, the Russian army will probably destroy Kherson the same way they did Mariupol,” she assured. The Observer.

One of the cities that suffered the most destruction during the first stages of the war was that of Mariupol. Since February 26, it has been under severe and continuous missile fire, causing, according to Russia, a total of 4,000 deaths and 3,000 prisoners. Ukraine, for its part, raises the figure to about 10,000 civilians killed and 20,000 citizens deported to unknown enclaves elsewhere in Russia.

On March 2, Moscow bombarded the city for 15 uninterrupted hours, where nearly 300,000 people were deprived of water, electricity and food. Efforts to evacuate the population failed after anti-personnel mines were found on the routes through which the humanitarian corridors had to travel.

The last military redoubt in kyiv entrenched itself in the Azovstal steelworks. For months, the soldiers who were inside the facilities resisted the Russian bombing. On May 17, Ukraine announced that all of its soldiers at the plant had surrendered to the occupation forces.

“We shoot down 10 drones a day”

For the first time since the invasion began, Iran has acknowledged that it supplied combat drones to Russia, although, it clarified, that it did so in shipments prior to the war. In this regard, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Hossein Amirabdollahianassured that it was only “a small number” of units.

After these statements, Volodymyr Zelensky accused Iran of lying, claiming that its army shoots down about “10 drones a day.” In recent weeks, Moscow has taken advantage of this type of unmanned aircraft to inflict significant damage, both on the Ukrainian infrastructure and on the civilian population.

“They have transferred dozens this very summer and have military personnel in occupied Ukraine helping Russia to use them,” the Ukrainian president added. Last October, senior Iranian officials told Reuters that their country’s government had promised to supply Putin with surface-to-air missiles in addition to the aforementioned drones.

The European Union agreed on October 20 to impose a series of new sanctions on Iran in relation to sending drones to Russia. kyiv has shot down about 230 drones since the invasion began.