ODESSA, Ukraine: Russian forces on Wednesday seized the first major Ukrainian city in their onslaught, the strategic port of Kherson, as they stepped up bombardment of civilian targets across the country, put other cities under siege and pushed to encircle and cut off the capital, Kyiv.
Russian troops and tanks rolled into Kherson, on the Dnieper River near the Black Sea, after days of intense fighting that left as many as 300 Ukrainian civilians and fighters dead, said the mayor and another senior Ukrainian government official who confirmed that it had fallen. “There is no Ukrainian army here,” the mayor, Igor Kolykhaev, said in an interview.
