Ukraine says Russia wants to turn Kherson into 'city of death'

An adviser to Ukraine's president said on Thursday Russia wanted to turn Kherson into a "city of death", and accused Moscow of mining everything from apartments to sewers and planning to shell the southern Ukrainian city from the other side of the River Dnipro.

The official, Mykhailo Podolyak, made the comment a day after Russia's defence minister ordered his troops to withdraw from Kherson and take up defensive lines on the opposite bank of the Dnipro.

"This is what (the) 'Russian world' looks like: came, robbed, celebrated, killed 'witnesses', left ruins and left," he wrote on Twitter.