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Kherson shelling and occupied-south violence before Christmas
Summary
A look back at the reported attacks in and around Kherson and Donetsk in the days leading up to 25 December 2022.
What did the days around 25 December 2022 show about the security situation in southern and eastern Ukraine? Reports from the preceding days pointed to violence on both sides of the front line, with civilians among the casualties.
On 24 December 2022, Russian forces shelled the city of Kherson, killing at least ten civilians and injuring 58 others, as reported at the time. The attack was recorded among attacks on civilians during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Two days earlier, on 22 December 2022, Andrei Shlepa, the Russian-installed head of Liubymivka in Kakhovka Raion, was assassinated in a car bombing in the Russian-occupied part of the Kherson region. Russia accused Ukraine of being behind the attack.
On 21 December 2022, shelling of a hotel and a restaurant in Donetsk killed two people and injured five others. Among the injured were Dmitry Rogozin, a former Russian Deputy Prime Minister and head of Roscosmos, and Vitaliy Khotsenko, Prime Minister of the Donetsk People's Republic.
What the sequence shows
Taken together, the reports describe three incidents in four days: a deadly bombardment of a Ukrainian-held city, a targeted killing of an occupation-installed local official, and shelling in Donetsk that injured senior figures of the Russian-backed administration. Each was reported with casualties, and in the Liubymivka case with a direct accusation from Moscow against Kyiv.
