Control of Kherson, a strategically important port with a population of 250,000, gives Russia access to a major bridge across the River Dnieper which divides east and west Ukraine. It also gives Putin’s troops the springboard to attack Kyiv, the capital, from the south.

A local resident giving his name as Hussein told BBC World Service: “Kherson is in Russian control and no one is willing to fight.” The city, he said, is “completely calm” and citizens are following Russian demands.

Hussein said the mayor had made it clear that “no one is coming to help us” and “we should listen to what Russians are saying”.

Vita Bondarenko, 26, a project manager, said: “Russia attacked us. They destroyed marks of culture, national heritage, museums and a lot of civilians. Here is a real hell on Earth, but we believe in our army and understand that we will not give up.

“We are surrounded. The Ukrainian army cannot just take and exterminate them now, because our army first of all thinks about the civilian population. But the Russians will be driven out of here or carried out dead.”

She denied her city had surrendered and said it had instead agreed to a temporary truce to bury the dead.

“The mayor had a conversation with the occupiers about the need to store food, clean up the dead on the streets and bury them,” she said. “Recently the Russians fired on firefighters and ambulances – this is unacceptable. The mayor agreed on this so that there were no obstacles in this. But he did not surrender the city and is not going to.”

Olga Olhovskaya, a 28-year-old mother of one, told The Telegraph: “The Russians in Kherson feel like masters. Our houses are being torn down. Babies are being born in basements. There is not enough food, not enough water and explosions day and night. We urgently need to take the children out.”