Ukraine claims key victory as Russian forces give up city held for 9 months

• Kyiv troops push forward in Kherson • Moscow’s biggest retreat of the war

Ukrainian troops pushed forward and a battle-scarred stretch of the southern front line fell silent on Thursday as Russian forces began withdrawing from the key Kherson region in their biggest retreat of the war.

A small group of Ukrainian soldiers were greeted by joyous residents in the center of the village of Snihurivka about 55 km north of Kherson city, as a Ukrainian flag fluttered above the square behind them.

“Glory to Ukraine,” a commandmonths er declared as dozens of locals applauded, cheered and filmed the soldiers on their phones.

A few kilometers away, in a devastated frontline village already held by Ukrainian forces, the guns had fallen silent for the first quiet night since the war began.

“It’s like there was no war,” said Nadiia Nizarenko, 85. “We hope the silence means the Russians are leaving.”

Ukraine’s army chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said Ukrainian troops had advanced 7 km in the past 24 hours and had recaptured 12 settlements in the south.

“We continue to conduct the offensive operation in line with our plan,”he said.

Moscow on Wednesday ordered its troops to withdraw from the west bank of the Dnipro River, including Kherson city — the only regional capital captured in nine of war, and which President Vladimir Putin had declared would be “Russian for ever.”

However, Ukrainian officials remain wary. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Russia would try to turn Kherson into a “city of death,” mining everything from apartments to sewers and shelling the city from the other side of the river.

Kyiv’s public wariness may in part reflect its urge to keep its own operations secret. Zelenskiy said: “I really want to have an unpleasant surprise for the enemy and not something that they’re prepared for.”