Amid joy, a ‘catastrophe’ looms in Kherson
KHERSON, Ukraine — Ukrainian soldiers worked to secure the city of Kherson on Saturday and battled Russian forces on its outskirts, the military said, one day after Ukraine’s special forces entered the southern port city to rapturous cheers from residents who had endured months of Russian occupation.
Despite the Russian withdrawal, the Ukrainian military’s intelligence agency said Saturday that there remained Russian soldiers in fixed defensive positions and that it was unclear whether they would fight, flee or surrender.
As Ukrainian forces entered the city, the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis, including a lack of water and electricity, became apparent. Nevertheless, for a second day, residents poured into the streets to celebrate.
The jubilant sounds of cheering and car horns mingled with occasional explosions from incoming artillery on the city’s outskirts. The military also said Ukrainian forces were clearing mines and explosives left behind by the departing Russian forces, and searching for any Russian soldiers who might be hiding in abandoned homes.
As night fell and the city went dark, blacked out by electrical cables blown up during the fighting, a party that had begun Friday in the city’s central square went on.
Ukrainian songs banned under the occupation blared from a speaker. People cheered and sang along, dancing to the light of car headlights and flashlights. Couples embraced and swayed to a slow song by Ukrainian band Oceans of Elza, marking a little pocket of hope in a war that is not over.
Kherson, an urban hub with a prewar population in the hundreds of thousands, is mostly without heat, water, electricity, medicines and cellphone service. One Ukrainian official called it “a humanitarian catastrophe.” And Saturday, reports of explosions at a critical dam roughly 40 miles to the northeast cast a growing shadow over the celebration.
Looming to the east are formations of Russian forces and their artillery, mostly still intact following their very publicized recent retreat. Kremlin-installed officials who had been occupying Kherson announced Saturday that they had set up a new administrative capital in a seaside resort town, Henichesk, about 110 miles deep behind Russian lines.
The sudden change, prompted by Russia’s searing loss on the battlefield, comes less than a month and a half after Moscow moved to annex the region, with its capital in Kherson city.
The city’s residents were still processing the fast-moving events Saturday. Only a day before, they had been hiding their Ukrainian flags from Russian soldiers. Now, they wrapped themselves in their flag’s blue and gold and hugged Ukrainian soldiers in the streets.
“People walk on the streets and congratulate each other,” said Serhiy, a retiree who asked that his last name not be published for security reasons. “It’s just a holiday!”