Port city of Kherson surrenders to invading Russian

Kherson’s Mayor Ihor Kolykhaiev told CNN “we don’t have more weapons to resist” Russian forces that surrounded the city.

“The people of Kherson are unarmed. We don’t have more weapons to resist, to put up an armed resistance,” he said to CNN’s John Berman.

“We don’t have the army in the city. The army has been defeated. The Ukrainian army had to retreat, so there are no arms. They’ve retreated towards Nikolaev,” he continued.

Kolykhaiev said the Russian troops will remain in control of Kherson unless and “until the Ukrainian army can advance on Kherson,” adding of Russian forces, that “they’re quite settled here.”

“Russian troops are everywhere,” he added.

Kolykhaiev told Berman that life goes on, but all city services are down.

“The normal services have stopped because the normal services have no way of operating,” he said.

He also made an appeal for humanitarian assistance, saying that “production, critical infrastructure has been suspended. The city is without power and without water.”

Kolykhaiev said there was no way of getting aid into the city because the only way to get aid in is via Crimea from the Russian side.

“So Russians want to send their humanitarian aid, but the people of Kherson are refusing it. Because they are patriots and they don’t want aid from Russians. They want aid from Ukrainians. So we are not receiving humanitarian aid at the moment,” he said.

“We have a lot of people here in need,” he said. “We have cancer patients, children who need medication. This medication is not currently getting through to them.”

Advertisement

Kherson is a strategically important city on an inlet from the Black Sea with a population of nearly 300,000.

CNN