The deputy head of the Russian administration in the Ukrainian Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov, confirmed on Sunday a new concentration of Ukrainian tanks at the entrance to the territory of the east of the country, right now the main epicenter of the war in Ukraine.
«Many units of equipment are being concentrated, with more and more armored vehicles, tanks on the rise,» he said in a video posted on his Telegram channel and picked up by the TASS agency.
Meanwhile, the process of evacuation of Kherson residents to the Russian-controlled left bank of the Dnieper River in the face of advancing Ukrainian forces continues.
«People living in Kherson city can still freely leave the right bank of the river,» it has made known.
Russia completed a first phase of the evacuation a week ago, but a few days later the pro-Russian authorities decided to extend the evacuation perimeter by an additional 15 kilometers.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army continues to advance in the region, annexed to Russia at the end of September after a referendum not recognized by a large part of the international community, and even announced that the Russian flag had stopped flying on the facade of the provincial administration building.
However, the authorities in Kiev remarked already on Thursday that they did not quite trust the announced Russian withdrawal, and did not rule out that Moscow could be plotting some «trick» to force some kind of «provocation» that would serve to accuse Ukraine of attacking the civilian population.