Kherson Is Closed To Civil Traffic And Residents Evacuated, Ukrainian Officials: Russia Is Trying To Scare People

Illustration of the relocation of Kherson residents. (Source: TASS/Dmitry Marmyshev)

JAKARTA - The Kherson region will be closed to incoming civilian traffic for seven days due to the uneasy situation in the region, the region's acting governor, Vladimir Balance, said on the Rossiya-24 television news channel on Wednesday.

"If war breaks out, there will be artillery cannons. They will bomb the city. It is better to take people elsewhere, which we are doing now. To make this work more orderly, the entry of civilians into the Kherson region is suspended for seven days," he said, launched TASS 20 October.

Balance further explained, "only those who have permission from the military commander's office" can enter the area.

"Most of this concerns those involved in life support services and the provision of supplies and public utility personnel," he added.

Balance also stressed that work is underway to improve ferry services to speed up the process of evacuating civilians from the right bank of the Dnipro.

"Boats that can transport people are being commissioned. Since morning, people have gathered at the designated place in the city, the river port in the first place. Today we will add a few more places where refugees can gather," said Balance.

The balance said about 10,000 people a day would be moved over the next six days, and several regions of Russia were preparing to take in people, citing Reuters.

Kherson residents have received text messages warning of the urgent need to evacuate, Russian state TV reported.

He also noted that Ukraine "is building a great power in the Nikolayev and Krivoy Rog regions." Regarding the decision to evacuate civilians, it said for "the creation of large-scale fortifications, so that any attack can be repelled."

Along with the martial law decree announced by President Vladimir Putin, he said he would hand power to the military, according to Russian news agencies.

Separately, the head of Ukraine's presidential office Andriy Yermak accused Russia of trying to scare the population of Kherson with what he described as a fake bulletin about the Ukrainian shooting in the southern Ukrainian city.

"Russia tried to scare the Khersonians with fake bulletins about the shooting of the city by our soldiers, and also organized propaganda shows with evacuations," he wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

"Propaganda will not work," he insisted.