Moscow, Russia.- The pro-Russian authorities of the Kherson region, in southern Ukraine, announced this Friday that four people died — two of them journalists – during a bombing against a bridge over the Dnieper River at night, an attack that Ukraine denies having carried out.
In a statement, the Russian Investigative Committee, which is in charge of criminal investigations, said that a group of civilians was shelled by the Ukrainians when they tried to cross the river where there are evacuations, before the advance of the kyiv troops.
According to this source, at least four people died, “among them two journalists who were among the population”, and that 13 were injured.
Details about the identity of the deceased journalists have not yet been released.
The Russian occupation authorities accuse the Ukrainian forces of shelling the Antonivskiy Bridge over the Dnieper River used for evacuations.
A Ukrainian military spokeswoman, Nataliya Gumenyuk, denied that her country’s forces had killed four civilians, speaking on television on Friday.
“We do not attack critical infrastructure. We do not attack peaceful towns or local populations,” he said.
Pro-Russian forces urged civilians to cross to the left bank of the river as Ukraine’s counteroffensive advanced, calling the operation a “deportation” of its citizens.
The pro-Russian administration in Kherson claimed overnight from Thursday to Friday that Ukrainian forces fired “12 HIMARS rockets at passing civilians near the Antonivsky Bridge.”
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Russian state television broadcast images of a damaged vehicle and traffic waiting to cross the river.
On Thursday, Stremousov said some 15,000 people had crossed the river in evacuations organized by Russian-backed forces.
The official insisted that Russia will not hand over Kherson, the first major Ukrainian city to fall, in March, in the face of the Russian offensive that began in February.
“Jerson will resist to the last (man). Believe me, nobody is thinking of giving up the city,” he said.
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