Kremlin-backed officials in the occupied Kherson region announced on Wednesday they are moving thousands of civilians from the region amid a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Russian state media said 50,000 to 60,000 people are to be evacuated either to Russia or to the east side of the Dnieper River.
However, a senior Ukrainian official accused Russia of organizing a “propaganda show”.
According to Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti, text messages on Wednesday urged people to leave Kherson, which was annexed by Moscow in September.
“There are plans to evacuate 50,000 to 60,000 people to the left bank of the Dnipro [river],” said Vladimir Saldo, the Kremlin-installed chief of the Kherson region. This would take place at a rate of 10,000 people per day over six days, he added.
Euronews reported that Russian state television showed residents crowding on the Dnieper’s banks, many with small children, to cross by boats to the east — and, from there, deeper into Russian-controlled territory.
However, Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, accused Russia of trying to “scare” Kherson residents with “fake newsletters” about Ukrainian shelling in southern Ukraine, Euronews reported.
“This propaganda show … will not work,” he wrote on the Telegram app.
Meanwhile Moscow has openly declared its intention to increasingly strike power stations, waterworks and other key infrastructure in Ukraine, as it continues its 8-month-long offensive.
One Ukrainian energy official said Wednesday that 40 percent of the country’s electric power system had been severely damaged, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russian forces have destroyed 30 percent of Ukraine’s power stations since October 10.
Associated Press reported Thursday that Ukrainians say they are prepared for blackouts as there are stocks of flashlights and candles.
One Kyiv resident said if there’s no gas for stoves, he has a plan to build a rudimentary stove in front of the building’s entrance and use firewood to heat it. Water has been bottled and jars of pickled vegetables and canned goods have been safely stored, he told AP.
Everyone knows to have plenty of blankets and warm clothes for the winter, he added.
Using energy supplies as a weapon isn’t a new tactic for the Kremlin, particularly when it comes to Ukraine.
“Energy was always quite a holy cow for the Russians, and they claim that by controlling energy they can control the country,” said Hanna Shelest, the director of security programs at Foreign Policy Council Ukrainian Prism, based in Kyiv.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who declared martial law in four illegally annexed regions of Ukraine, has used his ability to turn off the gas that passes through the country’s extensive, Soviet-era pipeline as leverage.
His tactic has been used not just against the government in Kyiv, but also against energy-dependent nations in Europe, who built pipelines via the Baltic Sea for Russian gas.
Under its new strategy, the Russian military hopes to destroy enough of Ukraine’s infrastructure to make life so intolerable that residents will blame their own government, Shelest said.
Putin has called Ukraine a failed state and a historical part of Russia. In trying to make Ukrainians suffer, he hopes they will believe him, she told AP.
