The evacuation of civilians from the Russian-occupied Kherson region in southern Ukraine facing a Ukrainian military offensive has been completed, a pro-Russian official said.
“The work organizing the departure of the inhabitants of the right bank of the Dnieper (river) to safe regions in Russia is complete,” Sergei Aksionov, leader of Crimea, a peninsula neighboring Kherson, said late on Thursday.
The Crimean peninsula was annexed in 2014 by Moscow.
Ukraine describes these population transfers as “deportations”.
The military offensive launched on February 24 by Russia in Ukraine has already caused the flight of more than 13 million people -more than six million internally displaced persons and more than 7.7 million to European countries-, according to the latest data from the UN, which classifies this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since the Second World War (1939-1945).
The Russian invasion – justified by Russian President Vladimir Putin, with the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russia’s security – was condemned by the generality of the international community, which has responded by sending weapons to Ukraine and imposing them on Russia. political and economic sanctions.
The UN presented as confirmed since the beginning of the war 6,374 civilian deaths and 9,776 wounded, stressing that these figures are far below the real ones.
Source: TSF
