The Moscow-installed head of the Crimea region said on Friday that the evacuation of civilians from occupied Kherson has been "completed".
The head of Moscow-annexed Crimea has said evacuations from occupied Kherson organized by Russia's forces amid a Ukrainian counter-offensive were "completed", after he visited the region with the Kremlin's domestic chief Sergei Kiriyenko.
"The work to organize residents leaving the left side of the Dnipro (river) to safe regions of Russia is completed," Sergei Aksyonov, the Moscow-appointed head of Crimea, said on Telegram late on Thursday.
Ukraine, for its part, has called Russia's evacuation of civilians "forced deportation".
On Wednesday, a Russian-installed official in Kherson, Vladimir Saldo, said that at least 70,000 people have left their homes in the region in the space of a week.
On Friday, Kyiv's army said that Moscow's “so-called evacuation” is continuing.
It claimed that the Russian command in Kherson is trying to “hide the real losses of servicemen” in order to “avoid panic”.
On Thursday, in a sign of Moscow suffering losses, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said that 23 of his fighters were killed in battles around Kherson this week with dozens more wounded.
He said that one of the Chechen units was shelled at the beginning of the week in the Kherson region, and that “23 soldiers were killed and 58 wounded,” he said.
