MOSCOW, November 14. /TASS/. Between 40,000 and 50,000 people decided to remain on the right bank of the Dnieper River refusing to be evacuated, Kherson Mayor Alexander Kobets said on Monday.
"According to our information, and considering that Kherson was a transit hub for the evacuation of people from nearby areas, between 40,000 and 50,000 people decided to remain in the city," Kobets said in an interview with Russia’s Rossiya-24 television channel.
On October 18, Vladimir Saldo, the acting Governor of the Kherson Region, announced that civilians on the right bank of the Dnieper River would be relocated to the left bank due to the threat of flooding that could occur if the Ukrainian military struck the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power plant.
On October 31, Saldo announced the expansion of the evacuation zone by 15 km from the Dnieper along the left-bank part of the region. The expanded evacuation zone included the territories of the Novokakhovsky urban district, Golaya Pristan, Alyoshkin, Kakhovky, Gornostayevky, Velikolepetikhsky, and Verkhnaya Rogachikskaya municipal districts.
From September 23 to September 27, the DPR and the LPR as well as the Kherson and the Zaporozhye Regions held referendums where the majority of voters opted to join Russia.
On September 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the heads of the four regions signed treaties on their accession to Russia.
On October 5, President Putin signed laws on ratifying the accession of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) as well as of the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions to Russia after getting the green light from both houses of the Russian parliament: the State Duma and the Federation Council.