Ukraine’s forces met with joy in Kherson streets

BLAHODATNE: Ukrainian troops were greeted by joyous residents in the centre of Kherson on Friday after Russia abandoned the only regional capital it had taken since its February invasion.

Russia said it had withdrawn 30,000 troops across the Dnipro River without losing a single soldier, but Ukrainians painted a picture of a chaotic retreat, with Russian troops ditching their uniforms, abandoning weapons and drowning while trying to flee.

Video footage verified by Reuters showed dozens of Ukrainians cheering and chanting victory slogans in Kherson’s central square, where the apparent first Ukrainian troops to arrive snapped selfies in the crowd.

Two men lifted a female soldier on their shoulders and tossed her into the air. Some residents wrapped themselves in Ukrainian flags. One man was weeping with joy.

Ukraine’s defence intelligence agency said Kherson was returning to Ukrainian control and ordered any remaining Russian troops to surrender to Ukrainian forces entering the city.

Locals had placed Ukrainian flags in the square as news of the end of more than eight months of occupation filtered out.

“Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the Heroes! Glory to the Nation!” one man shouted in another video verified by Reuters.

Serhiy Khlan, a member of Ukraine’s regional council for Kherson, said the regional capital was now almost fully under the control of Ukrainian forces.

The withdrawal from Kherson is the third major Russian retreat of the war, and the first to involve abandoning such a large occupied city. Moscow’s forces were driven in March from the outskirts of the capital Kyiv and ousted from the northeastern region of Kharkiv in September.

Kherson province is one of four that Russian President

Top Russian and UN officials held talks in Switzerland on Friday to try to iron out the extension of a deal allowing Ukrainian grain shipments and Russian food and fertiliser exports, with just over a week left before the wartime agreement meant to ease a global food crisis is set to expire.

The deal is critical because Ukraine and Russia are major suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other food, especially to parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia. A failure to renew the wartime agreement has raised fears that a global food crisis would get worse.