Russian authorities say Ukraine’s occupied Novaya Kakhovka under ‘intense fire’

Russian occupational authorities in southern Ukraine said Saturday that Ukrainian forces were subjecting the city of Novaya Kakhovka to “intense artillery fire” that had cut off electricity.

The shelling came the same day that authorities in Russian-annexed Crimea reported a drone attack on a fuel depot and as Kyiv prepares for a widely expected counter-offensive against Moscow’s forces.

Novaya Kakhovka is in the part of the southern Kherson region that Russia controls. It lies upstream the Dnipro River from Kherson, the regional capital from which Russia withdrew last November.

“Novaya Kakhovka and settlements around the district are under very intense artillery fire from the armed forces of Ukraine,” the city’s Russian-installed authorities said on Telegram.

It added that the artillery fire left the city “without power.”

The Moscow-installed authorities urged people in the city “to keep calm” and said that work to restore power will start “after the shelling ends.”

Novaya Kakhovka fell to Russian forces on the first day of their offensive in Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

It is home to the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, a strategic target capture in the first hours of Moscow’s offensive.