By Marc Santora and Natalia Yermak
Russian forces shelled a busy bus station in the southern Ukrainian port city of Kherson on Tuesday, killing at least six people and injuring scores more as Russia kept up its bombardment of the city, Ukrainian officials said.
Andriy Yermak, a top aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, released a video and photos showing what he said was the aftermath of the attack, with storefronts torn apart and at least one body in the rubble.
Yermak said on the Telegram messaging app that the transit hub had been crowded with people “just going on with their business, to work, to buy something in the city” when the attack occurred.
Zelenskyy said shells had also hit a parking lot, residential areas and a high-rise building. “The Russian army is heavily shelling Kherson,” he said in a statement.
In early November, Kherson was the scene of jubilation as residents wrapped themselves in Ukrainian flags and cheered their country’s troops entering the city after eight months of Russian occupation.
At the time, Russia forces retreated to the east bank of the Dnieper River — but within weeks they had begun bombarding the city and surrounding areas from positions across the waterway, often shelling civilian neighborhoods dozens of times a day.
Zelenskyy described those attacks as being driven by Moscow’s desire for “revenge” after its battlefield defeat.
Ukrainian officials have urged residents to evacuate, but thousands who lived through the Russian occupation are reluctant to leave, even though many homes have no power or running water as Russian bombardments have hit critical infrastructure.
Dozens of people in the city and surrounding villages have been killed since the Russian retreat, Ukrainian officials said.
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