Ukrainian official says Kherson not captured by Russia, fighting continues

LVIV, Ukraine (Reuters) – An adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday that Russia had not captured Kherson, a southern port city that Russia had earlier said it had seized.

Oleksiy Arestovych said fighting continued for the provincial capital of around a quarter of a million people, which sits at the Dnipro river’s exit into the Black Sea.

“The city has not fallen, our side continues to defend,” Arestovych told a live briefing broadcast on the website of the president’s office. “Fighting in the streets continues.”

“Information that Kherson has fallen and so on – that’s not true. Our military and local defenders continue resisting in the city and around it.”

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk, Natalia Zinets, Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Jon Boyle)