Russian troops retreat from Kherson

RUSSIAN Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered his troops to withdraw yesterday from the occupied Ukrainian city of Kherson and take up defensive lines on the opposite bank of the River Dnipro.

The announcement marked one of Russia’s most significant retreats and a turning point in the war, now nearing the end of its ninth month.

A senior adviser to Ukraine’s president said it was too early to talk about a Russian troop pullout from the southern city of Kherson.

“It’s necessary to separate words from deeds,” Mykhailo Podolyak, a political adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said in a statement.

In televised comments, General Sergei Surovikin, in overall command of the war, reported to Shoigu that it was no longer possible to keep Kherson city supplied.

The news followed weeks of Ukrainian advances towards the city and a race by Russia to relocate more than 100 000 of its residents by ferrying them to the opposite side of the river.

Kherson is the main city of the region of the same name – one of four Ukrainian regions which President Vladimir Putin proclaimed in September he was incorporating into Russia “forever”, and which the Kremlin said had now been placed under Moscow’s nuclear umbrella.

Shoigu told Surovikin: “I agree with your conclusions and proposals. For us, the life and health of Russian servicemen is always a priority. We must also take into account the threats to the civilian population.

The announcement had been anticipated by influential war bloggers, who described it as a bitter blow.

Compounding the sense of Russian disarray in Kherson, Moscow’s number two official there, Kirill Stremousov, was killed in a car crash yesterday. |