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Aftermath of Russian bombardment of the Ukrainian city of Kherson on January 11, 2022. Photo: Screengrab/Rudaw
KHERSON, Ukraine - Local authorities in Kherson have announced that the war-torn city has come under missile and drone attacks more than 63 times by Russia between Tuesday and Wednesday, inflicting severe material damages and wounding scores of civilians.
Some of the missiles landed in residential areas and another hit a maternity hospital on Wednesday which took firefighters a long time to finally extinguish.
"At first, we just heard explosion sounds in the city. Then they hit the hospital. We immediately referred some mothers and their children to another place. Everything was destroyed. The bombing was followed by a fire, so we called firefighting teams," Peter Marenkovsky, an official at the Maternity Hospital in Kherson told Rudaw.
Five people were wounded in Kherson after the city came under heavy bombardment.
Fearing the bombings, traffic and pedestrian movements in the streets of Kherson almost came to a standstill.
Gurina Galina, a local resident of Kherson, recounted the exact moment when she had found out that her house was damaged by a missile.
"We were busy preparing food for our dog when the emergency sirens rang in our mobiles, so we ran for cover," Galina said. "Then, our neighbors called us saying come back home, your house has been destroyed."
Ukraine regained control of Kherson after nine months of occupation. Since Russia retreated from Kherson, its military has bombarded the city several times, causing power blackouts, and further plunging people into misery as winter temperatures continue to drop.
The nearly one-year-long Russian war on Ukraine has resulted in the death of tens of thousands and displaced millions of civilians with the country's economic infrastructure severely damaged in all sectors.
A local military official in Kherson told Rudaw that the country needs more weapons in order to protect itself.
"We need more sophisticated weapons in order to hit larger targets of the enemy and make them retreat so they will not be able to hit Kherson with their range,” Dmytro Pletynchuk said.
“They [Russian troops] are on the other side of the Kherson river. They use all short-range and long-range weapons,” he added.
Ukraine has requested that the US provides it with the Patriot missile defense system to protect itself against Russian projectiles. Around 100 Ukrainian troops are set to head to the US next week to begin training on the Patriot batteries.
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