Russian troops shelled Kherson and 30 settlements in the Kherson region 258 times in the past week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on November 28 in his evening address after calling on Ukrainians to be prepared to endure more electricity shortages amid dropping temperatures.
Russian forces retreated from the west bank of the Dnieper River earlier this month but have been shelling towns, villages, and the city of Kherson, from their new locations on the opposite bank.
The Ukrainian government last week called on residents of Kherson to evacuate the city for the winter to avoid the bombardments, which Zelensky said damaged a pumping station supplying water to Mykolayiv, a city northwest of Kherson.
"This is the true essence of those random 'comrades' who took over Russia," Zelenskiy said.
"They are capable of nothing but destruction," he added. "This is all they leave behind. And what they are doing now against Ukraine is their attempt to take revenge...for the fact that Ukrainians have repeatedly defended themselves from them."
He said Ukraine will never be a place for destruction and will never accept orders from these "comrades" from Moscow. He again pledged to do "everything to restore every object, every house, every enterprise destroyed by the occupiers."
The British Ministry of Defense said earlier in its daily intelligence update on November 28 that Kherson continues to suffer daily bombardment by Russian artillery.
"The city is vulnerable because it remains in range of most of Russia’s artillery systems, now firing from the east bank of the Dnieper River, from the rear of newly consolidated defensive lines," British intelligence said.
Zelenskiy said earlier that Russia was "planning new strikes" on the country's power grid. As long as they have missiles, Russian forces "unfortunately, will not calm down," he said. (SJ/RFE)
