Russia destroys Kherson RSA building

The Kherson Regional State Administration (RSA) building was destroyed as a result of strikes by Russian occupiers, the head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, has said.

"The Russians destroyed the Kherson Regional State Administration building. We are clarifying information about the victims," ​​Prokudin wrote on Telegram on Thursday.

He illustrated the message with a photograph of the destroyed building, which shows that half of its facade along the entire height, a significant part of the rear outer wall and all the floors on the floors were destroyed by the strikes.

Other photographs from the scene show that the side wings of the building survived, but whether it can be restored after such damage is currently unknown.

On Thursday morning, it was reported that Russian occupation forces shelled the center of Kherson with guided aerial bombs (KABS) and that the regional administration building was damaged as a result. Then, part of the facade at the level of the technical floor above the upper fourth floor was destroyed, as well as the roof and upper floor, windows were broken out, the area in front of the administration was covered with debris.

First Deputy Chairman of the Kherson Regional Council Yuriy Sobolevsky said that the regional administration building had not been used for a long time and had repeatedly been under enemy fire.

"It is not a center for making any decisions - neither military nor civilian. The orcs needed a bright picture - and nothing more. The fact that there are residential apartment buildings nearby does not bother them. First they hit with KABs, and then they added artillery and drones," Sobolevsky wrote in Telegram.

At the same time, he expressed gratitude to the Kherson doctors, rescuers and police, who, according to him, worked as quickly and professionally as possible.

The head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, also posted a photo of the destroyed building on his Telegram account, noting that on Thursday it had suffered two targeted strikes at once.

"Kherson Regional State Administration, the second strike by the Russians in a day. Why? What is the logic of the actions? It is completely absent," he wrote.

The four-story building of the Kherson Regional State Administration was built in 1955 on Svobody Square in the center of Kherson in the style of neoclassicism. It was first subjected to rocket fire in December 2022, when two floors were damaged and six people were injured.