“Our further plans and actions for the city of Kherson will depend on how the military-tactical situation develops,” Surovikin said. “Today, it’s not easy.” He said the withdrawal from Ukraine’s largest city seized by Russia since the start of the war in late February was a move to save the lives of Russian soldiers amid difficulties in keeping supply lines open. The camera then panned to Shoigu, who said he agreed with Surovikin’s conclusions and ordered the troops withdrawn and transported across the Dnieper River. A few hours later, at around 23:00 (21:00 GMT), a local resident told Al Jazeera that Russian military vehicles were heard leaving Kherson, the administrative capital of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine that serves as a gateway to annexed Crimean peninsula to two remaining bridges. (Al Jazeera) One is the Antonivsky Bridge that spans nearly 1,400 meters (4,593 feet) across the azure waters of the Dnieper, Ukraine’s longest river, which bisects the former Soviet nation into the predominantly Russian-speaking east, or left bank, and the Ukrainian-speaking west, or right, bank. bank. The other is the bridge over the Nova Kakhovka Dam, northeast of Kherson, which contains nearly 20 cubic kilometers of Dnieper waters – and which redirects some of it to the arid, water-starved Crimean peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014 . Both bridges have been partially damaged by Ukrainian missile attacks in recent months, slowing the movement of Russian troops. “We hit them with missiles several times,” the Kherson resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Ukrainian troops have not entered the city, told Al Jazeera, referring to Ukrainian forces. “We are praying that they will come in,” he said, adding that he will stay in his apartment near the Antonivsky Bridge until Ukrainian troops enter the city after more than eight months of Russian occupation. But the Ukrainians are in no rush – even though since August, they have driven Russians from dozens of towns and villages on the right bank of the Dnieper, occupying an area roughly one-tenth the size of Belgium. According to information, the Kremlin’s decision to withdraw is not sudden. A retreat from Kherson “is a possible but undesirable scenario,” a Kremlin source told online magazine Meduza.io earlier this week. The publication even cited a document it said contained instructions from the Kremlin to Russian media on how to explain the retreat. “The evacuation of the peaceful citizens of the city [of Kherson] on the left bank of the Dnieper is triggered by the danger of a mass strike in the city by a huge group [Ukrainian] nationalists,” the directive reportedly said. But Ukrainian military expert Oleh Zhdanov believes the retreat is nothing more than a trap to lure Ukrainian forces and inflict huge casualties on them. He claimed that Russian forces disguised as civilians are hiding in the residential areas of Kherson to fire on Ukrainian soldiers. “On camera, it will look like pretended civilians are resisting the Ukrainian army,” he said in televised remarks on Thursday. Top Ukrainian officials are equally wary. “Until the Ukrainian flag is flying over Kherson, there is no point in talking about the withdrawal of Russian troops,” presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak said in televised comments on Wednesday. Actions speak louder than words. We see no signs of Russia giving up Kherson without a fight. A part of the ru-group is kept in the city and additional reserves are charged in the area. 🇺🇦 release territories based on intelligence evidence, not staged TV statements. — Mykhailo Podolyak (@Podolyak_M) November 9, 2022 Before the retreat was announced, Russian-appointed officials spent weeks urging tens of thousands of civilians to leave the city and destroyed hundreds of boats of all sizes on both banks. Many chose to stay in the city, which had a pre-war population of nearly 300,000 people, despite the dangers. “My mum refused to leave and now she is in her apartment with a sack of spices and some spaghetti,” Anton Chervenko, a sales employee in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, told Al Jazeera. The retreating passengers also removed Russian flags and even took two bronze statues of 18th-century tsarist generals. But Kherson regional lawmaker Serhiy Hlan is adamant the retreat is real because Russia can no longer afford to keep its forces on the right bank of the Dnieper amid daily missile attacks supplied by the West. “This is a logistical end to Ukraine’s counteroffensive that began in August,” the official said in televised comments. “The losses suffered by tenants in recent months have started to increase exponentially because we are getting more help from our Western partners,” he said. He is sure that in the near future, the Russians will occupy the entire Kherson region. “This is definitely not a trap,” Hlan concluded. Some international military experts agree. “The battle for the Kherson is not over, but Russian forces have entered a new phase – prioritizing the withdrawal of their forces across the river and delaying Ukrainian forces, rather than seeking to stop the Ukrainian counteroffensive altogether.” the War Research Institute, a think-tank, said on Wednesday. Nikolay Mitrokhin, a Germany-based analyst, warned that Russia’s retreat from the city could lead to massive, indiscriminate shelling from the left bank. Ukrainian forces “should expect that the Russians will easily destroy the city with bombing from the left bank, as they have done with Kharkiv,” the eastern Ukrainian city that has been bombed almost daily since the start of the war, Mitrokhin, expert in Russia at the University of Bremen, he told Al Jazeera. Kherson’s pro-Russian administration moved to the town of Henichesk, in the south of the region, earlier this month. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of retreating Russian soldiers have flooded into the city, moving into the empty homes and apartments of locals who had fled, according to a local resident. Their presence has intensified violence against local pro-Ukraine activists and sympathizers who are being herded into makeshift prisons known as “undergrounds,” the resident said. “There are a lot of people in the basements, even women,” she said on condition of anonymity. However, she is optimistic about the pace of disengagement – and even hopes that Crimea will be liberated soon. “I think we will soon go to the Ukrainian Crimea,” he told Al Jazeera.
