The background for the call from the authorities in Kherson is the increasingly harsh attacks from the Russian side. – 15 inhabitants were killed and 35 wounded, including a child, due to the enemy’s bombing. This is according to Halyna Lugova, spokeswoman for the local authorities in Kherson, according to the AFP news agency. She adds that private houses and blocks of flats have also been affected. BRUTAL: One of several apartment blocks in Kherson that has been hit by Russian attacks. Photo: Bernat Armangue / AP The head of the military administration in the city says that the Russian forces on the other side of the Dnipro river are firing rockets at residential areas and that a large building has been set on fire. Civilians hit Yesterday evening, 62-year-old Natalja Kristenko and her husband were going for a walk outside their home in Kherson when the building was hit by a Russian attack. TRAGEDIES: The 38-year-old woman Lilja Kristenko in Kherson cries over her parents who lost their lives in a Russian attack the day before yesterday. Photo: Bernat Armangue / AP She died instantly, while her husband died a few hours later in hospital. – The Russians took the two most important people in my life to me, says the couple’s daughter Lilja Kristenko to the AP news agency yesterday. She tried to call an ambulance, but the phone network was down. Now the woman says she has to live on to take care of her son. Evacuation underway Yesterday, the region’s governor said the hospital in Kherson had been evacuated due to constant Russian shelling. The authorities are asking the population to evacuate to other areas. MOST MISSING: Residents of Kherson stand in line to get water. Photo: Bernat Armangue / AP According to the news agency DPA, more than one hundred people, 26 of them children, must have been transported by train to the western part of Ukraine yesterday. The authorities in the city say that so much has been destroyed in the Russian occupation and bombing that it will be best for the residents to leave the city for the time being. VIOLENT DESTRUCTION: A school outside Kherson has been completely destroyed by Russian bombing. Photo: Bernat Armangue / AP It has been two weeks since Kherson was liberated by the advancing Ukrainian forces. The Russian occupation forces left the city and built trenches and other military fortifications on the eastern side of the Dnipro River. – Positional warfare with artillery Lieutenant-Colonel Geir Hågen Karlsen is the head teacher at the Staff School. He tells news that the city of Kherson and the civilian population there are particularly exposed to shelling by Russian artillery. ARTILLERY WAR: Ukrainian forces at Kherson fire at the positions of the Russian occupation forces on the east side of the Dnipro river. Photo: Bernat Armangue / AP The Russian forces are also exposed to shelling on the other side, but there is no civilian population there. – This will be a war of positions where in practice artillery is used in the shelling, says Karlsen. SHOULD EVACUATE CIVILIANS: Lieutenant-Colonel Geir Hågen Karlsen at the Staff School says that there will probably be a war of positions throughout the winter in the area near Kherson. Photo: Even Bjøringsøy Johnsen / news He believes it is unlikely that either side will attempt to launch a major attack across the Dnipro river. The military expert believes that the attacks against Kherson fit into the Russian strategy to destroy as much as possible of the electricity supply, the heating facilities and other important infrastructure. – It is probably right for the Ukrainian authorities to evacuate the civilian population from Kherson now that winter is approaching. The Russians’ intention is to make it as unlivable as possible in Kherson and other places they attack, says Karlsen.
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