Russians evacuate Kherson hospitals as Ukraine advances

‘We don’t want to go there [or] to be under the leadership of the occupiers’

RUSSIAN troops are evacuating their sick and wounded fighters from hospitals in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, stripping medical equipment as they depart, Ukraine has claimed.

“The so-called evacuation of invaders from the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region, including from medical institutions, continues,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in an update. “All equipment and medicines are being removed from Kherson hospitals.”

A local named Di, who wished to keep her second name anonymous, described watching Russians loot supplies from her area.

“I constantly see how they take everything out of the city. Washing machines, air conditioners, ambulances, fire engines, and rescue vehicles, literally from my window,” she told The Sunday Telegraph.

Ukraine is advancing in Kherson, which was seized by Russia early in the war.

Civilians were urged to leave the area ahead of what has been called “the battle for Kherson”. According to Ukrainian officials, the front line is 18 miles from the city.

At least 70,000 civilians have fled so far, Russian officials say, travelling to Russia and Crimea, but many have refused to leave their homes.

A local named Alla told The Telegraph she “won’t leave because from here there is only one way out and it is towards Crimea”.

“We don’t want to go there, we don’t want to be under the leadership of the occupiers,” she said.

The claims made by Ukraine could not be immediately verified, but President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a nightly address that the Russians were “dismantling the entire health care system” in Kherson.