Local residents: villages in Kherson Oblast shelled due to “infighting” between Russian occupiers

Olena Roschchina – Thursday, 26 May 2022, 08:05

Dmytro Burlai, a local people’s representative, believes that the ongoing shelling of villages in Kherson Oblast might be caused by infighting between different groups of Russian occupation forces.

Source: Dmytro Burlai, a resident of Novovorontsovsk, on Novyny Novovoronstovshchyny [Novovorontsovsk Regional News] on Facebook

Details: According to Burlai, the villages of Novovoskresenske and Dudchany were shelled on 24 May.

According to witnesses, on the morning of Tuesday 24 May, Russian troops used cluster munitions in an attack on Novovoskresenske; in the evening of the same day, they "covered the entire village" with highly explosive anti-personnel butterfly mines [mines that glide to the ground then explode later upon contact - ed]: around 1,000 butterfly mines were dropped on the village.

"People don’t know what to do, their streets and courtyards are full of these mines, they are risking their lives to pick them up, to clear their yards. The occupiers don’t know what to do, either," Burlai wrote.

The direction the shells came from suggests that the village of Dudchany was shelled from the town of Lepetykha. Residential buildings in the village have been damaged; unexploded ordnance is scattered throughout.

"Local residents don’t understand what caused the shelling. We get many similar eyewitness reports. It seems that there might be infighting between some groups [of Russian occupation forces]," Burlai wrote.

He added that on 25 May, the Ukrainian Armed Forces conducted a precision strike on Russian troops. Along the Kherson front, 2 Russian armoured vehicles and some of the positions of Russian troops (including their dugouts) were destroyed with the support of heavy equipment, aircraft, and artillery.

Burlai added that "A certain number of the occupiers’ land forces have bee confirmed killed."