Former Kherson Mayor Mykolaienko on surrender of city: There was "fifth column" in leadership positions in region. Blowing up Antonivskyi Bridge would have allowed resistance
If the Antonivskyi Bridge had been blown up in the early days of the full-scale invasion, it would have been possible to regroup the troops and resist, preventing the occupation of Kherson.
This was reported by former Kherson Mayor Volodymyr Mykolaienko in an interview with Censor.NET.
Responding to the question, "Who surrendered Kherson?", Mykolaienko said: "I don't know. I can't say. Let the investigative authorities figure it out. I am not a judge. I hope that those who did this will be punished, because they have the blood of our soldiers and civilians on their hands. If the Antonivskyi Bridge had been blown up, the nearest crossing would be Kakhovka. It's easy to control there, because the right bank is high and the left bank is lower. And the next one is Zaporizhzhia. It would have been possible to regroup the troops and somehow resist."
"They entered Kherson and literally on the second or third day mined the Antonivskyi Bridge. I even sent photos to the ’big land’ showing where its sides were being mined. After all, people who lived nearby took photos, sent them to me, and I, in turn, forwarded them to our military," Mykolaienko added.
He also noted that some of the leadership positions in the security forces in the Kherson region were held by people who were interested in the Russian side.
"This is the "fifth column". There is nothing surprising about this. Take Saldo, for example, among the political leadership, who at one time was both mayor and member of parliament, and had certain connections and influence, of course. People like him were preparing for the arrival of the "brothers". As we saw, quite successfully. It was very painful to see how, within a few hours, Russian troops were already standing near Kherson, on the left bank. There was a certain confusion. How could this be?! After all, about three weeks before that, the president had come and attended the training exercises. He was told that everything was fine. He even held a press conference saying that we were calm about this direction. But we saw what happened next," the former head of the city sums up.
Read the full text of Mykolaienko's interview at the link.
