450-500 thousand people remain under Russian occupation in Kherson oblast.
This was announced at a briefing on Monday, June 20, the head of the Kherson Oblast Military Administration Hennady Lahuta.
Currently, evacuation from Kherson is possible only in two directions — in the direction of the temporarily occupied Crimea and in Zaporizhzhia through the occupied Melitopol and Vasylivka. The occupiers closed the exit to Dnipropetrovsk or Mykolayiv oblast at the end of May.
In addition, Lahuta said that more than 600 residents of the region are held captive by Russians: mostly activists and members of the anti-terrorist operation. They are kept in different places: in particular, the Kherson pre-trial detention center, police stations and territories of recreation centers and boarding houses. In particular, Oleksandr Babich, the mayor of Hola Prystan, has been in captivity for three months.
- On June 20, Iryna Vereshchuk, the Minister for the Temporarily Occupied Territories, said that more than 1,500 Ukrainian civilians were being held captive by Russians.