The strike on Novaya Kakhovka was carried out with American weapons, local administration says
Explosion in Novaya Kakhovka © social media
The Ukrainian attack on Novaya Kakhovka – a city in the Kherson region controlled by the Russian forces – with American weapons is a “crime against the civilian population”, Vladimir Leontyev, head of the city’s military-civilian administration, told RIA Novosti on Tuesday night. According to him, there are victims, dozens of people were injured, hundreds were left homeless.
“Tonight reminds me of the terrible analogies of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which the United States carried out in August 1945. Almost the same thing happened to us today. There are already casualties among the civilian population, there are wounded, hundreds of people were left homeless, dozens of houses were destroyed. Hospitals continue to receive people. Many dozens of people are injured. We are shocked by this bombardment,” he said.
Deputy head of the regional administration Kirill Stremousov told RIA Novosti that Ukrainian troops launched a missile attack on Novaya Kakhovka with high-precision American HIMARS rocket launchers.
A Russian ammunition depot exploded in the city, the speaker of the Odessa regional administration Sergey Bratchuk and adviser to the head of the Kherson region Sergey Khlan said.
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“People’s windows are flying out, but they are still happy … Because this means that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are close,” Hlan said.
Sources of the Russian TASS and the RIA Novosti agency, in turn, say that warehouses with saltpeter were attacked, emphasizing separately that the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station was not damaged, but the nearby market, hospital and residential buildings were.
“The information has already been unequivocally confirmed that a large humanitarian hub was located right a few meters from the missile hit, and a boy with a disability remained on duty there for the night. This is not some kind of heartbreaking story, it’s actually true. This boy died for sure. But the psychological effect that they want to achieve (in Kyiv) as a result of these bombings will not be achieved. This is a crime against the civilian population, first of all,” Leontyev said, adding that he considers Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to be a criminal.
“When you give an order to bomb the center of a peaceful city, this is a crime, an obvious crime that has no statute of limitations. This is a real tragedy,” Leontyev added.
The city of Novaya Kakhovka, a regional center in the Kherson region, came under Russian control on the very first day of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, February 24. Previously, there was no information in open sources that there were warehouses with saltpeter in the city.