Demining exercise in Kherson kills 3
Kyiv slams Russian shelling of region
Three Ukrainian emergency services workers were killed on Saturday when a mine exploded while they were demining parts of the Kherson region, said the emergency service of another region, in which they served.
“All three selflessly served in the emergency and rescue squad of the Special Purpose Unit of the State Department of Ukraine in Zhytomyr region and performed the task of demining territories liberated from the enemy in the Kherson region,” the Zhytomyr emergency service said on its Facebook page.
The Zhytomyr region is west of Kyiv, in northern Ukraine.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine 10 months ago, controls most but not all of Kherson region. By mid-November, Ukrainian forces retook Kherson city — the region’s administrative centre — and a number of settlements in the region.
Explosive experts have worked there since, after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Russian forces had heavily mined buildings and objects. They have also done so in many other areas that Ukraine has been able to retake.
The US State Department estimated in early December that some 160,000 square kilometres of Ukrainian land needed to be checked for explosives hazards. That is nearly half the size of Germany’s land area.
“We expect this to be one of the largest landmine and unexploded ordinance challenges since World War Two,” the State Department said in a briefing posted on its website.
On Saturday, Ukrainian authorities said a Russian strike had killed at least 10 people in the Kherson City, while Moscow blamed Ukrainian forces for the attack.
Mr Zelensky blasted Russian “terror” after shelling left 10 dead and 55 injured in Kherson city on Saturday, urging his compatriots to persevere as they observed a Christmas Eve defined by war.
On the day marking 10 months since the start of the Russian invasion, shells rained around a busy market and started a fire in the southern port city which Kyiv’s forces recaptured in November.
AFP journalists at the scene saw several bodies lying on the street, including a man killed in his car.
Rescuers and police officers were seen comforting a man in tears next to a lifeless woman.
Severely injured residents lay on the ground, medics tending to them.
Standing next to her husband’s corpse and holding his blood-soaked jacket, a woman cried: “The medics tried (to save him), but there was no pulse.”
Despite Russia’s retreat from the city, Kherson remains within reach of Moscow’s weaponry and under constant threat.
Mr Zelensky on Telegram called the attack “terror... killing for the sake of intimidation and pleasure”.
“It is the real life of Ukraine... The world must see and understand what absolute evil we are fighting against,” he said.
The Russian-installed head of the Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, said on Telegram that the shelling was “a disgusting provocation” by Ukraine used to blame Russia. Regional governor Yaroslav Yanushevych reported on Telegram that 10 people died and 55 were wounded in the attack, with 18 in serious condition.