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Kyiv on Thursday condemned the “mass forced relocation” of its citizens living in regions occupied by Russia. online news
“The Russian occupation administration began mass forced relocation of residents of the left-bank of the Kherson region… to the temporarily occupied Crimea or to Russia,” the Ukrainian foreign ministry said in a statement.
“Similar deportations are also being carried out by Russia in the Zaporizhzhia, Lugansk and Donetsk regions, as well as in Crimea.”
On Tuesday Russian occupation authorities in the southern Kherson region announced more “evacuations” of people along the left bank of the Dnipro river.
Moscow-installed Kherson governor Vladimir Saldo said he was moving people further into the region or to Russia because of the risks of a “massive missile attack.”
Kyiv reiterated Thursday that it saw the move as a “deportation” and said it was “accompanied by looting by the Russian occupiers of industrial, infrastructural, cultural, educational and medical institutions, as well as private houses and apartments” in the south.
Moscow-installed authorities in Kherson said last week 70,000 civilians had left their homes on the right bank of the Dnipro.
Kyiv’s forces are preparing for a fierce battle to retake the region’s main city Kherson and the surrounding areas on the right bank of the Dnipro after making major gains in Ukraine’s east and south.
The city, with a pre-conflict population of around 288,000 people, was one of the first to fall to Moscow’s forces after President Vladimir Putin sent troops across the border in February. Retaking it would mark a major milestone for Kyiv.
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