‘We are Ukraine’: Locals joyful over Russian retreat from Kherson, On Saturday, Ukrainians welcomed Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson while Kyiv claimed to be working to clear mines from the important southern city, keep track of Russian crimes, and restore power throughout the area. In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed to have seized four Ukrainian districts, including Kherson.
‘We are Ukraine’: Locals joyful over Russian retreat from Kherson
After nearly nine months of conflict and hardship, the Russian retreat from the city of Kherson strengthened the Ukrainian resistance. Outside of Kherson at the once-occupied town of Pravdyne, villagers who had fled greeted their neighbors, some of whom were overcome with emotion. Svitlana Galak, who lost her eldest daughter in the conflict, exclaimed, “Victory, at last!” The 43-year-old told AFP, “Thank God we’ve been freed, and everything will now fall into place.
Her 44-year-old husband Viktor continued, “We are Ukraine.” The town, which is home to a Polish Roman Catholic church, was littered with anti-tank mines and grenades that had been rendered inoperable, along with a number of damaged structures. Yaroslav Yanushevych, chairman of the regional state administration, stated from the heart of Kherson that every effort was being made to “restore normal life” to the region.
Yanushevych revealed in a video shared on social media, with people cheering in the background, that a curfew had been implemented and that access to and from the city had been restricted while de-mining was being done. Images released by the Ukrainian military showed Kherson citizens singing the national anthem “Chervona Kalyna” while dancing and singing around a bonfire.
“Today, we all feel elation,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday after declaring the day before that the Black Sea city was back in Kyiv’s hands. – Evacuation orders – Kherson city — which serves as a gateway to the Black Sea — was the first major urban hub to fall after Russia invaded in February.
“Before fleeing Kherson, the occupiers destroyed all critical infrastructure — communication, water supply, heat, electricity,” Zelensky said, adding that nearly 2,000 explosives had been removed. He said that Ukraine’s forces had established control over more than 60 settlements in the Kherson region.
After an eight-month Russian occupation, Ukrainian television resumed broadcasting in the city and the region’s energy provider said it was working to restore power supplies. Ukraine’s police chief Igor Klymenko said around 200 officers were erecting roadblocks and recording “crimes of the Russian occupiers”.
He urged Kherson residents to watch out for possible landmines laid by the Russian troops, saying one policeman had been wounded while de-mining an administrative building. A woman and two children were taken to hospital with injuries after an explosive device went off near their car in the village of Mylove, police said.
In Berislav district of the Kherson region, Ukrainian police said Russian shelling left “dead and wounded”, without providing further details. Across the Dnipro River in the east, local pro-Moscow authorities in Kakhovka district issued an evacuation order to its employees to head to the Russian region of Krasnodar.
“Today, the administration is the number one terrorist attack target for Ukraine’s Armed Forces,” according to a post on an official Telegram channel. “This is why by order of the Kherson region government… we are moving to a more secure territory, from where we will be governing the area,” it said, referring to the Russia-installed body.
Ukraine’s Armed Forces said Saturday evening that Russian forces were currently “strengthening fortification equipment of the defensive lines on the left bank of the Dnipro”. Kherson’s full recapture would open a gateway for Ukraine to the entire Kherson region, with access to both the Black Sea in the west and the Sea of Azov in the east.
– Nuclear hint –
On Saturday, an increasingly isolated Putin spoke by phone with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, pledging to intensify political and trade cooperation, the Kremlin said. Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev hinted again that Moscow could use nuclear weapons.
“For reasons that are obvious to all reasonable people, Russia has not yet used its entire arsenal of possible means of destruction,” Medvedev said on messaging app Telegram.
“There is a time for everything.”
Blinken hailed the “remarkable courage” of Ukraine’s military and people and vowed US support “will continue for as long as it takes” to defeat Russia. In London, British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said Russia’s “strategic failure” in Kherson could prompt ordinary Russians to question the war.
“Ordinary people of Russia must surely ask themselves: ‘What was it all for?'”
Despite the win in Kherson, Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba urged the West to continue to help his country and warned that Russia is still “mobilizing more conscripts and delivering more weaponry to Ukraine.” Kherson remains a part of Russia, according to the Kremlin.
“The Russian Federation is concerned about this. Nothing has changed and nothing can change in this “Dmitry Peskov, the spokesperson, said reporters. The Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014, is connected to Russia’s mainland by a land bridge that would be disrupted if the entire Kherson region were taken back by Ukraine.
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