Ukrainian troops were greeted by cheering crowds as they entered central Kherson on Friday, ending more than 260 days of Russian occupation of the only regional capital captured in the war. A video posted on social media showed a crowd chanting “ZSU!” – the acronym for the Ukrainian Armed Forces – as the first soldiers arrived at Freedom Square in front of the regional administration building. A pair of male residents lifted a female soldier onto their shoulders and attempted to toss her into the air, while a male soldier took selfies among the excited residents of the newly liberated town. “Kherson is Ukraine!” shouted a male voice. Several in the crowd could be seen wiping tears from their eyes. In another video, residents of a recently liberated city tore down a billboard that read “Russia is here forever!” The scenes came hours after the last Russian troops left the city center, most of them retreating to the far bank of the Dnipro River in a strategic withdrawal announced earlier this week by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. The retreating Russians destroyed the main Antonivsky bridge across the Dnipro on Friday. Even after a pair of Ukrainian and European Union flags were placed Friday morning on a plinth in Freedom Square – which once held a statue of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin – the Ukrainian advance into the city center has been slow and cautious. Fears remain high that Russian troops mined much of the city, which is the capital of Kherson region or province, before leaving, and plan to pound it with artillery from positions across the river once Ukrainian troops arrive. Serhiy Khlan, a deputy in the Kherson regional parliament, told an online press conference on Friday that “the takeover of Kherson is in its final stages.” He said many Russian troops were unable to retreat across the river before the bridge was destroyed and had since changed into civilian clothes. The Russian withdrawal from the city is the latest triumph for the Ukrainian military, after liberating the eastern region of Kharkiv in September and successfully defending Kiev at the start of the war. The loss of the regional capital, which had a population of just over 280,000 before the war, is also a further blow to the credibility of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who claimed just six weeks ago that he had annexed the entire Kherson region – along with the south-eastern Ukrainian regions of Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk – declaring that the residents of these regions were “forever becoming our citizens”. Russia still controls a strip of land in southern Ukraine through parts of those four regions that connect Crimea, which it illegally annexed in 2014, to the Russian mainland. Dmitry Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, said on Friday that Russia still claims the entire Kherson region as its territory, saying it “remains part of the Russian Federation. there are no changes and there can be no changes.” Volodymyr Omelyan, a member of the Regional Defense Forces reserve, told The Globe and Mail that his unit fought for four months in Kherson and the neighboring Mykolaiv region from April until October, when they were replaced by new troops. “We lost many brothers in arms due to fierce fighting, artillery and rocket attacks, but we are very proud that we stopped the horde and now they are running away,” said Captain Omelyan, a former cabinet minister who – like tens of thousands of Ukrainians – left the normal his job and joined the TDF at the start of the war. Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Friday that “not a single unit of military equipment or weapons is left on the right (west) bank” of the Dnipro. He also claimed that no personnel or equipment had been lost during the withdrawal. Ukraine’s military, meanwhile, released videos it said showed artillery and rocket fire pounding Russian troops as they retreated. In a video address Thursday night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said 41 settlements have been liberated in the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions. “What is happening now has been achieved through months of hard work. It was achieved through courage, pain and loss. It is not the enemy that runs away. It is the Ukrainians who drive out the invaders at a heavy cost,” he said. “We must go all the way – on the battlefield and in diplomacy – for our flags, the Ukrainian flags and never again the enemy’s tricolor.” While residents in the newly liberated areas of Kherson were celebrating, the Russian destruction of the Antonivsky Bridge created a new front line and a new gap. In a video posted on his Telegram channel, Russian war propagandist Alexander Koch interviewed locals who were stunned to find their only route to the city center cut off. “You stay there;” Mr. Kots asked an old man who had walked his bicycle to the edge of the Dnipro. “Yes, yes,” replied the man. “We also have to go get some food,” added another old man who was looking at the river in confusion. MURAT YUKSELIR / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: GRAPHIC NEWS
