Moscow says Kherson pullout starts as Ukraine claims gains
MYKOLAIV (AFP) — Moscow announced 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 defense ministry said.
Ukrainian officials have remained wary since Moscow first signaled late Wednesday that it was pulling 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 Pervomaiske-Kherson direction, capturing a total of more than 200 square kilometers (77 square miles) from the Russians, he added.
Late Wednesday, Russia’s most senior defense 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.
In the nearby southern city of Mykolaiv, which Russian forces have pounded with artillery and missiles for months, there was little belief the Russians would do as they said.
“You cannot trust what they say. No one will give us anything back just like that,” Svitlana Kyrychenko, a 54-year-old store clerk, told AFP.
She said friends told her there were even more Russian troops in Kherson and that she believed that Moscow’s forces would not leave the city without a fight.
“I don’t believe that they will just give anything back,” she added.