Holding Mykolaiv has come at a deadly price: 134 civilian casualties, its governor says

It's hard to escape the irony as Anatoli Nikolai sweeps up broken glass outside a building that's had its windows blown out in the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv. 

The sidewalk the 81-year-old is cleaning up is part of Moscow Street.

It's right around the corner from the regional administrative headquarters destroyed by a Russian airstrike on Tuesday, killing 20 people, injuring scores of others and shaking city blocks all around it.

"I can't explain it to myself, why massacres are done by people who are sent here," Nikolai said.  "We are still brothers."  

But trying to tell relatives in Russia what Moscow is doing to Ukraine is like talking to "zombies," he said.  

"I was calling my nephew and he says, 'I don't believe it. This is your propaganda. This is your troops bombing yourselves.'" 

Mykolaiv is a mainly Russian-speaking city of nearly 500,000 people, although many have left since the invasion began on Feb. 24. The Kremlin expected its troops to meet little resistance here, but instead the battle for this strategic territory has become entrenched. 

In the past, Mykolaiv was one of the Russian Empire's largest shipbuilding centres and the headquarters of its Black Sea navy for more than 100 years.  

Today, the city enjoys hero status amongst Ukrainians for fending off — for weeks now — Russian forces attempting to advance west along the southern coast towards Odesa from Kherson, the only major Ukrainian city that's fully under Russian control. 

If Russia were to try an amphibious landing to capture Odesa, Ukraine's largest Black Sea port and a key asset, it would need a supply route from Kherson, most analysts suggest.

But Kherson lies about 70 kilometres east of Mykolaiv and, as fighting continues between the cities, the Ukrainians claim continued success in pushing back the Russians.   

That success has come at a heavy price. 

On Wednesday, Governor of Mykolaiv Oblast Vitaliy Kim said that 134 civilians from the region have been killed since the start of the conflict, including six children.  

Kim is widely considered a thorn in the side of the Russian President Vladimir Putin.