Ukrainian forces turning schools into bunkers: Russian Defence Ministry

Russia has once again accused the Ukrainian forces of using schools and other educational institutions as bunkers and launch pads.

The Russian Defence Ministry released a video on Wednesday showing its servicemen discover the headquarters of the territorial defence of Ukraine in the southern city of Kherson.

The Ministry said the Ukrainians used the children's educational institution as a point of deployment and turned it into a stronghold.

"This time, the Ukrainian nationalists used one of the city's schools for their accommodation. The school itself and the basement were filled with boxes of ammunition, weapons, as well as medicines and military equipment," it said in a statement on Wednesday.

 

The video shows the Russian military examining the premises for the presence of mines and explosive objects and recovering all weapons and ammunition. It was said that the school building, garden was cleared of explosive objects and was handed over to the local administration.

"On February 24, the Ukrainian armed forces, dressed in civilian uniforms, broke into the school. They quickly began to settle into classes, and began to bring in some boxes, some things, some equipment, some big bales. I was kicked out of school under threat of reprisals," the Russian Defence Ministry quoted the school principal as saying.

"Apparently they were soldiers, but they were all in civilian uniform. They opened the premises and located classes. War is war, but people must be people. I ask that such a situation as happened in our school never happen again. Do not use children's educational institutions, medical institutions for the location of military equipment, weapons and military people, because this entails a great danger," he added.

The Russian military revealed that while leaving the school, the Ukrainian forces left a number of documents which helped them trace their movement in the city later.

The Defence Ministry said several Kherson residents assisted the Russian military in the search for "war criminals and nationalists" and also helped to locate a cache of arms and ammunition.

"One of them led to weapons kept in the basement of his apartment building in the city of Kherson. Kalashnikov assault rifles and cartridges for them were stored in metal pipes, which were filled with mounting foam so that the weapons would not become damp," the statement added.

As reported by IndiaNarrative.com on Tuesday, Moscow has intensified air strikes on the Armed Forces of Ukraine during the new stage of its 'special military operation' in Ukraine which intends to "completely liberate" the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbas region.

"During the night, operational-tactical and army aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces hit 73 military facilities of Ukraine. Among them: four command posts, 57 places of accumulation of manpower and Ukrainian military equipment, seven strongholds and four ammunition depots. Also, as a result of the strikes, six tanks, nine armoured vehicles and a battery of 152-mm Msta-B howitzers were destroyed," Russian Defence Ministry Spokesperson, Major General Igor Konashenkov said on Wednesday.

The Russian military said the crews of the Russian Air Force "practiced practical air strikes against buried long-term fortified structures used by nationalist formations and depots with weapons and ammunition, including foreign-made ones" on Tuesday.

"Air strikes were carried out singly and in pairs. The results of the defeat of ground targets were recorded by the means of objective control of aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles," the Russian Defence Ministry said.

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--indianarrative