Kyiv wary as Russia pulls out of key city
Ukrainian officials suggested Moscow could be strategically feigning, rather than experiencing a major setback in Kherson
MOSCOW/WASHINGTON: Moscow announced on Thursday it had begun retreating from Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson as Kyiv said it had recaptured a dozen villages in the strategic Black Sea region.
“The Russian troop units are manoeuvring to prepared position on the left bank of the Dnipro river in strict accordance with the approved plan,” the Russian defence ministry said.
Ukrainian officials have remained wary since Moscow signalled late Wednesday that it would pull forces from the west bank of the Dnipro river in Kherson, in what would be major Russian setback in a region Vladimir Putin claimed to have annexed.
Ukrainian troops have for weeks been capturing villages en route to the main city in the eponymous region, while Kremlin-installed leaders in Kherson have been pulling out civilians in what Kyiv has called illegal deportations.
Ukrainian general Valeriy Zaluzhny said on social media that Ukraine’s forces had recaptured six settlements after fighting near the Petropavlivka-Novoraisk front.
Kyiv’s army had taken another six in the PervomaiskeKherson direction, capturing a total of more than 200 sqkm from the Russians, he added.
Late on Wednesday, Russia’s most senior defence officials responsible for Ukraine announced in a televised meeting that they had taken the “difficult decision” to withdraw from Kherson and set up defensive lines further back.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested Russia could be strategically feigning rather than experiencing a major setback.
Military officials in Kyiv reiterated that caution on Thursday.
“At this point, we can’t confirm or deny information about the retreat of Russian troops from Kherson,” said Oleksiy Gromov, from the Ukrainian armed forces’ general staff.
Russia losing the Kherson region would return to Ukraine important access to the Sea of Azov and leave Putin with little to show from a campaign that has turned him into a pariah in Western eyes.
The retreat will put pressure on Russian control of the rest of the Kherson region, which forms a land bridge from Russia to Crimea, the peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014.
Moscow’s announced withdrawal came as the United States estimated more than 100,000 Russian military personnel have been killed or wounded in Ukraine. Kyiv’s forces have likely suffered similar casualties, according to top US General Mark Milley, who shared the most precise figures released to date by Washington.
Russia has been pushing to capture the eastern Donbas city of Bakhmut, with the battered town famous for wine and salt mines coming under intensive fire for weeks.