Russian troops ‘open fire on Ukrainian protesters’ in Kherson

One person injured during attack, says Ukraine

Russian soldiers used gunfire and stun grenades to break up a protest in Kherson on Monday, Ukraine’s army has said.

Footage posted online appeared to show several hundred Ukrainian demonstrators running for cover as projectiles sounded around them in the port city’s Freedom Square.

“Russian security forces ran up, started throwing stun grenades into the crowd and shooting,” the Ukrainian armed forces said in a statement.

At least one person was wounded but the cause of their injuries was not known, it added.

The Kremlin has not commented on the incident, but insists its forces do not target civilians, despite the UN’s confirmation that at least 900 non-combatants have been killed during the war.

Protests have been an almost daily occurrence in Kherson, the only major city to have fallen to Russia since it launched its invasion on 24 February. Residents have displayed their opposition to the Russian occupation by taking to the streets and waving Ukrainian flags.

In other developments on the 26th day of the war, eight people died when a shopping mall in Kyiv was hit overnight by a Russian air strike, Ukrainian authorities said.

A damaged shopping centre in Kyiv is pictured on 21 March 2022. (EPA)

Elsewhere, Moscow’s forces reportedly targeted civilian buildings in the Black Sea city of Odesa for the first time. “These are residential buildings where peaceful people live,” mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov said.

Over in the Zaporizhzhia region, local authorities have claimed four children were hospitalised on Monday after evacuation buses were hit by Russian shelling.

This comes on the same day that Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, called the bombardment of nearby Mariupol was a “massive war crime”.

“Destroying everything, bombarding and killing everybody in an indiscriminate manner. This is something awful,” he said.