'Not a civilian evacuation': Collaborators and Russians leaving Kherson, resident says
Russian officials claim they are trying to remove all civilians from the city, the focus of a major counteroffensive by Ukrainian troops. But in a detailed interview, one resident told Sky News that the evacuation is not designed for them.
John Sparks | 23 October 2022 | 05:51, UKFear is a powerful thing and it is motivating many to leave the Ukrainian city of Kherson.
With Ukrainian troops closing in on the city, thousands have left using ferries to cross the great Dnipro River.
Kherson was the first major city to fall to Vladimir Putin's military after the invasion began in February and its recapture would represent a major prize for the Ukrainians.
In footage filmed for Sky News, we see people in Kherson boarding boats from the city's piers, their bags and suitcases hauled speedily behind them.
However, who exactly are these evacuees? Russian officials say they are trying to remove all civilians, warning of Ukrainian shelling and "terrorist attacks".
But in a detailed interview, one resident of Kherson told Sky News that the evacuation is not designed for them.
"This is not a civilian evacuation. The collaborators are running away and those who came to help the occupiers," said Vlad, a local writer, activist and organiser, whose full name we are not using.
"In truth [those fleeing] number no more than a few thousand people a day.
"And who are those people they are taking out?
"Mostly it's families of Russian officers, families of Russian officials and collaborators who helped to organise the referendum. Among them are teachers and doctors, municipal workers and kindergarten staff.
"Those who have taken Russian passports." . . .
'Everything stolen'Russia's military chief, General Sergei Surovikin, seemed to raise the prospect of a withdrawal when he told an interviewer that the situation in Kherson has been "difficult".
Our interviewee simply is not sure.
"I don't think anybody knows, even the Russian soldiers," he said. However, the large-scale looting of this city is not something that is open to question.
Sky News has seen pictures of ransacked shops and businesses with signs placed on the front. "Empty," they read. "Everything's stolen." Our interviewee says that everything has been lifted, large and small.
"In the last few days, we've seen them take fire trucks, ambulances, equipment from the cancer clinic and the regional hospital, anything of high value. They take it quickly, load it in the cars and take it to Crimea. It's the robbery of a city." . . .
https://news.sky.com/story/not-a-civilian-evacuation-collaborators-and-russians-fleeing-kherson-resident-says-12727584
Russia did the exact same thing to Ukraine in 1941 in the wake of the German advance. They stole all the food, capital goods, and anything else of value and took them East. They also conscripted all Ukrainian males from 16 to 56 and put them in the path of the Wehrmacht to slow the advance. These Ukrainian units suffered 97% casualties. Oh, and then the Russians blew all the dams, drowning thousands of Ukrainian civilians downstream.
Spooky how history repeats itself.
