The Russians are bombing several neighborhoods in Mykolaiv, the government said on Wednesday. For the second day in a row, the town of Bereznehuvate came under fire on Tuesday, according to regional authorities. The bombings in nearby rural areas set fire to crops, they added. The government said fierce fighting was raging in many villages along the regional border. In Kherson, which has been under Russian control since March, more activists, politicians and journalists have reportedly been abducted. “There are no Ukrainian media in the region,” Ukrainian authorities said. “The occupiers and local collaborators are making increasingly strong statements about the annexation of the Kherson region to Russia,” the government said, but added that “more and more Ukrainian flags and inscriptions are appearing in the city (of Kherson) every day.” Background: The extent of dissent and resistance in Kherson is difficult to measure, but there have been several attacks on Ukrainian officials who have chosen to cooperate with the Russians, as well as anti-occupation poster campaigns. Earlier this week, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk urged people in the Kherson region to leave if they could. He said that if necessary, they would have to travel through the Crimea annexed by Russia, adding that it was “almost the only” evacuation corridor available to those who wanted to escape. The Russian occupation forces have made it increasingly difficult for civilians to leave Kherson on Ukrainian territory. Anecdotal evidence suggests that hundreds of Ukrainians fled Kherson via Crimea, taking buses via Turkey or Russia and Georgia on a long journey to reach areas not under Russian control. “According to our estimates, up to 50% of the population of the area, ie half a million people, have already left the area of Hersonissos and Hersonissos,” said Henadi Lahuta, head of the Hersonissos regional military administration, on Tuesday. The roads to Kryvyi Rih and Mykolaiv, formerly used by Kherson residents for evacuation, “do not work now, the occupiers do not let people out. There are columns left out, but people are forced to spend weeks in the fields and pass through the occupied Melitopolis and Vasilivka in Zaporizhia “, he added. More than 1,400 people had fled the occupied territories in the past 24 hours, about 400 of whom had come from the Kherson region and arrived in Zaporizhia, Alexander Struhch, head of the region’s military administration, said on Tuesday.
