The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has strongly condemned the deportation of Ukrainian citizens from Russian occupied regions in southern and southeastern Ukraine.
"The Russian occupation administration has begun mass forced relocation of residents of the left bank [of the Dnieper River] of the Kherson region...to the territory of the temporarily occupied Crimea or the Russian Federation," the ministry said in a statement on November 3.
Similar deportations are also being carried out by Russia in the Zaporizhzhya, Luhansk, and Donetsk regions, as well as in Crimea, the ministry said.
Volodymyr Saldo, the Russian-appointed head of Kherson, announced on October 31 an expansion of what Russia has called the evacuation of Ukrainian citizens.
Saldo said he was moving people further into the region or to Russia because of the risks of a "massive missile attack."
Just three days earlier, Russian-installed officials announced that the evacuation process in Kherson region had ended.
Kyiv reiterated on November 3 that it saw the move as a "deportation." It also said reports continue circulating about the alleged mining of the Nova Kakhovska hydroelectric power plant by Russian troops.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy previously said that Ukraine suspected Russia had mined the dam and units of the power plant on the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine, and if it were blown up, more than 80 settlements, including Kherson, would be in danger of flooding.
The Foreign Ministry statement also accused Russian troops of looting industrial, cultural, educational, and medical institutions, as well as private houses and apartments.
The ministry called on the international community to condemn the forced relocation, to introduce new sanctions against Russia, and to increase military aid to Ukraine for the liberation of its occupied territories.
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The Ukrainian military's General Staff also said on November 3 that Russian forces continued the so-called evacuation of the local population in the Kherson region and accused them of taking away civilian and communal property, even equipment from hospitals, as they carried out the evacuation.
Russian forces also removed the roadblocks in Kherson. The head of the Kherson regional military administration, Yaroslav Yanushevich, believes that they did this to create an illusion that they have left the city.
It was also reported that the Russian flag was removed from the Kherson regional administration building. The head of the joint coordination press center of the Defense Forces of Southern Ukraine, Natalya Humenyuk, said that this could be a provocation.
Russian troops captured Kherson in March in the early days of the war. Its loss to Ukrainian troops would signal a significant retreat.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, asked to comment on the battlefield situation in southern Ukraine, said Ukrainian forces in the Kherson region "have the capacity" to retake the territory on the west side of the Dnieper River and Kherson city from Russian troops.
Austin, speaking at a news conference at the Pentagon, did not answer a question about whether Russian forces were preparing to leave, but he expressed confidence in the Ukrainian troops' ability to beat back Russian forces.