Civilians in Ukraine's Kherson region should be evacuated: Vladimir Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that civilians in Ukraine's Kherson region should be evacuated from the conflict zone. This is the Russian President's first acknowledgment of a deteriorating situation in the region. 

Russian officials in the Kherson region, one of four Ukrainian provinces that President Putin declared part of Russia at a Kremlin ceremony in September, have pleaded for civilians to leave the region's west, where



Ukrainian forces have retaken ground in recent weeks.

On Thursday, Kherson's Russian-appointed deputy governor Kirill Stremousov issued several video appeals for civilians to leave the part of the province on the west bank of the Dnipro river.

Kherson region is seen as strategically crucial, controlling both overland access and much of the water supply to Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.