Russia evacuates people from Ukraine’s occupied Zaporizhzhia region
Kiev, May 11 (EFE) .- Russia is evacuating residents from the occupied Zaporizhzhia region in southern Ukraine to other cities further away from the front, amid fears of a counter-offensive by Kyiv in this area.
“Over the past three days, the Russian occupation administration “evacuated” about 300 locals, including children, from temporarily occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia region to Berdyansk,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on Facebook on Thursday.
The Head of the United Coordinating Press Center of the Southern Defense Forces Natalia Humeniuk recently said that “under the guise of ‘evacuation’ from the temporarily occupied areas, Russian invaders are taking civilians to the places, where they are deploying their military equipment and units to use people as a living shied,” official news agency Ukrinform reported.
In September, Russia declared its unilateral annexation of Zaporizhzhia and the neighboring Kherson, as well as Donetsk and Lugansk, in eastern Ukraine despite its army not having been able to fully control them.
Zaporizhzhia is home to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which is currently being managed by the Russians and which has suffered several attacks since the start of the Russian invasion, for which both sides blame each other.
In its report on Wednesday, the Ukrainian military said that the Russians had looted the medical institutions of Enerhodar, the satellite city where the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) is located.
They also looted all enterprises located in the industrial area near the plant, it added.
On the other hand, Ukraine’s National Resistance Center, established to oppose the Russian invasion, said Thursday that the Russian occupation authorities in the Zaporizhzhia region have been left without financing.
The Center said that Russia has stopped funding these occupied areas in view of the development of the situation at the front.
Kremlin has not paid the salaries of the officials of the so-called “military-civilian administration” of the temporarily occupied areas of Zaporizhzhia for more than two months, according to the Center. EFE
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