Russia wants to turn Kherson into ‘city of death’, Kyiv says

KYIV (Reuters) -A senior adviser to Ukraine’s president said on Thursday Russia wanted to turn Kherson into a “city of death” after Moscow ordered its troops to withdraw from the southern Ukrainian city.

Political adviser Mykhailo Podolyak accused Russia of mining everything from apartments to sewers and planning to shell Kherson from the other side of the River Dnipro.

“RF (Russia) wants to turn Kherson into a ‘city of death’. The Russian military mines everything they can: apartments, sewers. Artillery on the left bank plans to turn the city into ruins,” Podolyak wrote on Twitter.

“This is what (the) ‘Russian world’ looks like: came, robbed, celebrated, killed ‘witnesses’, left ruins and left.”

Russia did not immediately comment on Podolyak’s remarks.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on Wednesday announced Russian forces would retreat from the west bank of the Dnipro River, which includes Kherson, the only regional capital Moscow had captured since invading Ukraine in February.

Ukraine’s military said it was still unable to confirm Russian troops were withdrawing from Kherson.

Brigadier General Oleksiy Gromov told a briefing that the Ukrainian armed forces own actions had left Russian forces no option but to withdraw.

“But at the moment, we can neither confirm nor deny the information about the so-called Russian withdrawal of troops from Kherson. We will continue our offensive operation in accordance with our plan,” he said.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk, Writing by Tom Balmforth, Editing by Timothy Heritage)