‘Beginning of the end’
UKRAINIAN President Volodymyr Zelensky called the Russian withdrawal from Kherson “the beginning of the end of the war” yesterday as he met soldiers in the southern city.
The liberation of Kherson after a grinding offensive that forced Russia to pull back its forces from the city is one of Ukraine’s biggest success so far of the nearly ninemonth invasion and a stinging blow for the Kremlin.
Mr Zelensky said that the country’s “strong army” was persistently reclaiming the territories taken by Russia since its invasion while also acknowledging the difficulties and the heavy human toll.
The Ukrainian army has now reclaimed three major areas of the country in its counteroffensives – the area north of Kyiv, the northeastern region of Kharkiv and now Kherson and many neighbouring settlements.
Mr Zelensky is accusing Russian forces of having committed “the same atrocities as in other regions of our country” before they were forced to pull out from the strategic southern city.
In his nightly video address on Sunday, Mr Zelensky said that “investigators have already documented more than 400 Russian war crimes, and the bodies of both civilians and military personnel have been found”.
“In the Kherson region, the Russian army left behind the same atrocities as in other regions of our country,” he said. “We will find and bring to justice every murderer. Without a doubt.”
Mr Zelensky visited the newlyliberated city yesterday. He was photographed posing with troops in a central Kherson square.
The end of Russia’s eight-month occupation of Kherson city has sparked days of celebration but also exposed a humanitarian emergency, with residents living without power and water and short of food and medicines. Russia still controls about 70% of the wider Kherson region.
Mr Zelensky said Russian soldiers who were left behind when their military commanders abandoned the city last week are being detained. He also spoke, again without details, of the “neutralisation of saboteurs”.
Ukrainian police have called on residents to help identify people who collaborated with Russian forces.
Mr Zelensky urged people in the liberated zone to also be alert for booby traps.