Hugs and selfies as key city freed
Heroes’ welcome for Ukrainian soldiers after Russia abandons Kherson – the lynchpin port it occupied for 8 months
UKRAINE liberated the city of Kherson yesterday after eight months of brutal occupation at the hands of Russian invaders.
Jubilant locals wept as they kissed and embraced the first Ukrainian soldiers to arrive in the centre of the Black Sea port, the first major urban hub that fell to Russia.
Celebrations continued long into the night as residents chanted and waved the Ukrainian flag – which was also raised over government buildings – during impromptu street parties. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky declared Kherson is ‘ours’, hailing ‘a historic day’. The fall of the only regional capital to be seized by Russia since the start of the invasion marks another major humiliation for Vladimir Putin.
Just six weeks ago, he claimed the entire Kherson region and three other occupied Ukrainian territories had joined Russia ‘for ever’ in a brash and ostentatious annexation ceremony in Moscow.
But in the early hours of yesterday morning Russia said it had completed its withdrawal of more than 30,000 troops from the city and surrounding territory west of the Dnipro River.
Ukrainian artillery pounded key crossings over the Dnipro to cut off the last routes for Russians trying to flee and troops crossing the river came under heavy fire.
‘They managed to scarper, the scum,’ said Oleksiy Arestovych, a top aide to Mr Zelensky.
Images showed several sections of the Antonovsky Bridge – the only road crossing between Kherson and the Russian-controlled eastern bank – missing after it was blown up. It is unclear which side was responsible.
The Kremlin claimed no equipment or soldiers were left behind, but Kyiv painted a picture of a chaotic flight with Russian troops abandoning uniforms and drowning in the vast river. Serhii Khlan, the deputy head of
Kherson’s regional council, disputed the claim that retreating forces took all their equipment with them, saying he was told ‘a lot’ of hardware got left behind.
There was still caution on the Ukrainian side, however, as the retreat happened more quickly than military analysts had predicted.
There are fears that Russian soldiers could still be hiding in the city and that Putin’s forces may have left traps for Ukrainian troops.
Mr Khlan said some Russian soldiers had been unable to leave and had changed into civilian clothing.
‘The number of these people is not known,’ he said. He urged local residents to stay at home while Ukrainian troops cleared the city.
Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military’s southern command, said ‘saboteur operations’ by Russian soldiers in plain clothes cannot be ruled out.
In a chilling warning to Putin’s men, Mr Khlan said: ‘One part will surrender, the other part will be liquidated by Ukraine’s armed forces.’
Amid the celebrations, Mr Khlan said the humanitarian situation there is dire as the occupiers had destroyed key infrastructure. ‘The situation with fuel is difficult and there has been no electricity for a week,’ he said. Temperatures hit 3C (37F) yesterday, with freezing weather expected to arrive next week.
Nevertheless, victory parades started to break out after it had become clear that Russia no longer controlled the city.
‘Glory to Ukraine! Glory to Heroes,’ shouted one man in a video circulating on social media, a slogan first used by the country’s military as a greeting during Ukraine’s 1917-1921 war of independence.
Iryna Osadcha, a 30-year-old Kherson resident, said that she sobbed as she saw Ukrainian soldiers entering the city. ‘ My emotions cannot be described in words,’ she told the Mail. ‘I want to thank Britain and the whole world for their help and faith in us.’
Dasha Zarivna, a senior Ukrainian presidential adviser who was born
and raised in Kherson, said she was ‘ extremely emotional to see Ukrainian flags flying over its city centre again’.
‘This war is only going one way,’ Miss Zarivna said. ‘The Russian armed forces and public in general can see this is becoming a historic humiliation. Hopefully the retreat from Kherson will force wiser heads in the Kremlin to seek a pragmatic way out of this disaster that they have got themselves into.’
The loss of Kherson is highly significant because it is the gateway to the occupied peninsula of Crimea, and supplies water to much of southern Ukraine. Last night, in a delusional social media missive, staunch Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev vowed Russia would retake the city.