Kherson residents urged to flee as Russian attacks intensify

KIEV

A video grab shows a damaged hospital following an air attack in Kherson, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (AFP Photo)

A drone attack early on Aug. 28 killed one man in Kherson, hours after authorities urged residents to leave as intensifying Russian attacks on the southern Ukrainian city risk cutting power supplies ahead of the long winter.

Russian forces are positioned on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River, which borders the city briefly occupied by Moscow in 2022, making it particularly vulnerable to shelling.

The drone attack early on Aug. 28 in Kherson's Korabelnyi district killed a 61-year-old man, Yaroslav Shanko, the head of the Kherson city administration, said.

The attack came after regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin on Aug. 27 urged residents of Kherson, "especially families with children and elderly people", to "please leave", in a Telegram post.

Prokudin said there was an "extremely difficult security situation" in the city, which had about 280,000 inhabitants before the start of Russia's invasion in February 2022. It was occupied by Russian forces from March to November of that year.

"The enemy is intensifying its attacks every day on the region's critical infrastructure," he said, adding that on Aug.26 "Russian forces again attacked Kherson's district heating plant with glide bombs".

The facility "sustained very serious damage", he said, adding that Kherson may find itself "without electricity or heating not for hours or days but for a long period".

Ukrainian stocks of interceptor missiles have also started to dwindle.

"There is no way to destroy these types of drones or aerial bombs in any region of our country," he said.

Last winter, Russia repeatedly targeted Ukrainian power plants, plunging millions of people into cold and darkness.

President Volodymyr Zelensky warned earlier this month that Ukraine had "virtually no intact thermal power plants".