Kherson, annexed in late September by Moscow, was the first major city to fall after the Russian invasion that began in late February.
In the wake of the recapture of Kherson by Ukrainian forces, the time has come for demining, infrastructure repairs, recording and documenting “crimes” attributed to Moscow in the major southern city, the loss of which is a major setback for the Kremlin.
For Kyiv, the West is on the way to a “joint victory” against Russia after the recapture of Kherson. The Ukrainian national anthem was played there yesterday after the withdrawal of the Russian troops.
Kherson, annexed in late September by Moscow, was the first major city to fall after the Russian invasion that began in late February.
In the images released by the Ukrainian armed forces, Ukrainians dance in circles around a fire to the tune of “Chervona Kalyna”, a patriotic song.
Outside Kherson in the village of Pravnine, returning residents hug their neighbors. Some cannot hold back their tears.
“Finally, victory!” Svitlana Galak told AFP. “Thank God, we are finally free and now everything will return to its place,” said this 43-year-old woman who lost her eldest son in the battle. “We are Ukraine,” said her husband, Vikor, 44.
“We are all very happy,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who also cited significant damage in the region.
“Before leaving Kherson, the invaders destroyed all vital infrastructure – communications, water supply, heating, electricity,” the Ukrainian president said, adding that 2,000 explosive devices were neutralized.
According to Zelensky, Ukrainian armed forces have regained control of nearly 60 locations in Kherson province.
Incoming and outgoing artillery fire continued to erupt around Kherson’s international airport, and police said they were setting up checkpoints in and around the city and scanning for mines left behind by the Russians.
The mayor of Kherson said the humanitarian situation is “serious” due to the lack of water, medicine and bread in the city.
After eight months of occupation by Russian forces, television programs of the Ukrainian state television are again playing in Kherson. And the province’s energy supplier announced it was working to restore electricity supply.
“The city has a critical shortage, mainly of water,” Mayor Roman Holovnia said on television. “Right now there is not enough medicine, there is not enough bread because it cannot be baked: there is no electricity.”
About 200 police officers have also been deployed in Kherson to set up roadblocks and record and document “the crimes of the Russian occupiers,” national police chief Igor Klimenko said in a statement.
He alerted residents of the city to the presence of explosive devices left behind by Russian forces, urging them to “move with caution.” According to Klimenko, a police officer was injured during a demining operation in a building in Kherson.
A woman and two children were injured in an explosion near their car in the village of Milove in the province, according to police, who also reported Russian shelling in the Berislav region.
“We became 20 years younger”
Villagers with flowers in hand waited on the road to the southern city of Kherson to greet and kiss Ukrainian soldiers today as Ukrainian forces poured in to secure control of the right bank of the Dnieper river after a Russian retreat.
In the small village of Klapaya, about 10 km from the center of Kherson, Natalia Porkhunuk, 66, and Valentina Bukhailova, 61, stood on the side of a road holding bunches of freshly cut flowers, smiling and waving to passing vehicles carrying Ukrainian soldiers.
“We became 20 years younger in the last two days,” Bukhailova said, shortly before a Ukrainian soldier jumped out of a small truck to embrace the couple.
Outside the village of Chornobayivka, near Kherson, a Reuters reporter saw incoming Russian fire that looked like cluster munitions at the nearby airport. Fire followed shortly after from the Ukrainian side.
The road to Kherson from Mykolife was lined with fields containing miles of abandoned Russian trenches. A damaged T72 tank lay with its turret upside down.
Abandoned trenches were littered with litter, blankets and camouflage netting. An irrigation ditch was littered with discarded Russian tools and anti-tank mines were visible on the side of the road.
In the village of Klapaya, Porkhunuk said that for most of the past nine months, the village has been occupied by pro-Russian Ukrainian forces from the Russian-occupied Donetsk region “who said they will not harm us and we should stay in the houses us”.
But for two weeks, Russian soldiers occupied Klapaja and told villagers they were there to search for “Nazis, Banderites (a.k.a. followers of a Ukrainian nationalist movement) and American biolabs,” he said, saying he had answered them: “If you want to look for them, look elsewhere and go home.’
Russian soldiers also warned that: “If we find that you are hiding any Ukrainian soldiers, we will level your house and the village,” she continued. He said the attackers also ransacked houses whose residents had left.
In the nearby village of Kiselivka, a group of teenagers stood on a dusty corner with a sign made from a cupboard door on which they had painted “Kherson” and an arrow pointing to a detour around a damaged bridge on the main highway from Mykolaiv.
“We’re here because we wanted to help in some way,” said Artem, 17.
Villagers said the Russians left on Wednesday night.
“They didn’t fire any shots,” said Hihori Kuluaka, 54, who was riding a scooter. “They just left.”
“In the right way”
“Only together we can prevail and expel Russia from Ukraine. We are on the right track,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said today during a meeting with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Phnom Penh.
“Our victory will be our common victory,” he continued.
Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson marks “a new strategic failure” by Moscow, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said in a statement today.
“It looks like the Ukrainians have just scored a remarkable victory: the only regional capital that Russia captured in this war is back under the Ukrainian flag, which is absolutely remarkable,” said US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.
“Finally my city is free”
This withdrawal of Russian forces is the third in scale since the invasion began on February 24. Russia was forced to abandon its occupation of Kiev in the spring in the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance, before being driven out of almost all of the territory of Kharkiv province (northeast) in September.
On Friday night, in Kyiv’s iconic Maidan Square, Kherson residents who had been refugees in the capital for months celebrated the news with enthusiasm.
“Finally my free city, the one where I was born, where I lived my whole life,” said Nastya Stepenska, with tears in her eyes, the colors of the Ukrainian flag painted on her cheeks. “When (the Russians) arrived it was terrifying, we didn’t know what would happen the next day, if we would stay alive,” said the 17-year-old high school student, who was “in a state of shock.”
Earlier on Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that it had completed the “redeployment” of its units from the west bank, on which Kherson is located, to the east bank of the Dnieper, claiming that it had suffered no casualties and had not given up military equipment.
According to Moscow, “more than 30,000” Russian soldiers and “nearly 5,000 units of weapons and military vehicles have been withdrawn” from the west bank of the Dnieper.
This military retreat, however, has all the makings of a shock for Moscow and the Russian president himself. When he announced at the end of September the annexation of the Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia, Vladimir Putin said that they would remain in Russia forever.
Today the Russian president spoke with his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raishi, at a time when Tehran appears to be a key ally of Moscow in its invasion of Ukraine.
The two leaders “emphasized the intensification of cooperation in the political, economic and trade spheres,” the Kremlin said.
For his part, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev again threatened to use nuclear weapons.
“For reasons that are obvious to all reasonable people, Russia has not yet used the full arsenal of possible means of destruction,” he wrote on Telegram, noting: “for everything there is a time.”
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I am currently a news writer for News Bulletin247 where I mostly cover sports news. I have always been interested in writing and it is something I am very passionate about. In my spare time, I enjoy reading and spending time with my family and friends.
