In a video address hours after Russia said it had completed the withdrawal of troops from the strategically important city, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: “As of now, our defenders are approaching the city. We’ll be in shortly. But special units are already in the city.” Russia has relinquished its final foothold in the major city, one of the first to be captured in the invasion that began on February 24. The withdrawal could act as a springboard for further advance on the occupied territories. Russia’s Defense Ministry said its troops had completed their withdrawal from the western bank of the river that separates Ukraine’s Kherson region at 5am. Videos and photos on social media showed excited residents taking to the streets, waving Ukrainian flags and celebrating. A Ukrainian flag flew over a monument in Kherson’s main square for the first time since the city was seized in early March. Some footage showed crowds cheering men in military uniform and throwing a man in battle fatigues into the air. Other videos showed villagers hugging troops on their way into the city. Ukrainian officials have not yet confirmed that the city was in Ukrainian hands. Zelensky said Russian forces had laid mines in the city and that after the troops entered they would be followed by swordsmen, rescuers and energy personnel. Despite the difficult tasks ahead, “Medicine, communications, social services are coming back. … Life is coming back,” he said. Ukrainian intelligence has urged Russian soldiers who may still be in the city to surrender pending Ukrainian forces’ arrival. “Your command has left you at the mercy of fate,” she said in a statement. A Ukrainian regional official, Serhii Khlan, disputed the Russian Defense Ministry’s claim that its 30,000 retreating troops took all 5,000 pieces of equipment with them, saying “a lot” of material was left behind. The Russians’ final withdrawal came six weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed the Kherson region and three other Ukrainian provinces, promising they would remain Russian forever. Moscow’s forces still control about 70% of the Kherson region. In Kyiv, celebrations in the capital’s main square continued late into the night, with people opening bottles of wine and chanting “Glory to Ukraine”. Some expressed surprise at the speed of events. “I thought the Russian army would defend and there would be a kind of siege like in Mariupol,” said the eastern port, which was destroyed in weeks of fighting, said Andrei Trach, an Odessa resident who works in Kyiv. “It is a very important day for Ukraine because it shows the whole world that Ukraine can and will definitely defend every square kilometer and inch of land.” French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted in French and Ukrainian welcoming Ukraine’s recapture of Kherson, calling it “an important step towards the full restoration of its sovereign rights”. The Kremlin remained defiant on Friday, insisting the withdrawal was in no way an embarrassment for Putin. Moscow continues to see the entire Kherson region as part of Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. He added that the Kremlin does not regret holding celebrations to celebrate the annexation of occupied or partially occupied areas of Ukraine, deferring all questions about the Kherson withdrawal to the Defense Ministry. Putin has so far been silent on Kherson, despite making several public appearances since the withdrawal was announced. Shortly before the Russian announcement, Zelensky’s office described the situation in the province as “difficult”. It said Russian shelling of villages and towns had been recovered by Ukrainian forces in recent weeks during their counteroffensive in the Kherson region. The General Staff of Ukraine’s army said Russian forces left looted houses, destroyed power lines and mined roads in their wake. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak had predicted that the retreating Russians would seek to turn Kherson into a “city of death” and would continue to bombard it after relocating across the Dnieper River. Some sections of the Ukrainian government could barely hide their glee at the pace of the Russian withdrawal. “Russian army leaves battlefields in triathlon mode: horse race, broad jump, swim,” tweeted Andriy Yermak, a senior presidential adviser. Videos on social media showed villagers hugging Ukrainian soldiers. Recapturing the city of Kherson could give Ukraine a strong position from which to extend its southern counteroffensive into other Russian-held areas, possibly including Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014. But from its new troop positions on the east bank, the Kremlin could try to escalate the war, which US estimates showed may already have killed or wounded tens of thousands of civilians and hundreds of thousands of soldiers. General Ben Hodges, the former commander of US military forces in Europe, described the Russian retreat as a “colossal failure” and said he expected Ukrainian commanders to continue to press Russia’s depleted forces ahead of a possible future push for Crimea in next year. “It’s too early to plan the victory parade, for sure. But I would wait until the end of this year — so in the next, say, eight weeks — the Ukrainians will be able to start setting the conditions for the decisive phase of this campaign, which is the liberation of Crimea, which I believe that it will be done by the summer,” he said in a telephone interview. Meanwhile, a Russian S-300 missile attack overnight killed seven people in Mykolayiv, about 68 kilometers (42 miles) from the regional capital of Kherson, Zelensky’s office said. Rescue crews sifted through the rubble of a five-story apartment building in search of survivors. Standing outside his family’s apartment, Roman Mamodov waited for news of his missing mother. The 16-year-old said he found “nothing there” when he opened the door to look for his mother after the missile hit. Friday was her 34th birthday. “My mind was blank at the time. I thought it couldn’t be true,” he said. “The cake she prepared for the celebration is still there.” Zelensky called the missile attack “the terrorist state’s cynical response to our successes on the front.” “Russia is not abandoning its despicable tactics. And we will not give up our fight. The occupiers will be held accountable for every crime against Ukraine and Ukrainians,” Zelensky said. The Russian Defense Ministry did not acknowledge the attack on a residential building in Mykolaiv, saying only that an ammunition depot was destroyed “in the vicinity of the city”. Mykolayiv Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevich told the AP that Russia may step up its bombing of his city. “The more success the Ukrainian military has, the more Russia lowers the bar on terrorism,” he said. Sienkevych said that S-300 missiles fired from the Kherson region can reach Mykolaiv within a minute. Some 149 civilians have been killed and 700 people have been seriously injured in the city since the invasion began. The president’s office said Russian drones, rockets and heavy artillery strikes in eight areas killed at least 14 civilians between Thursday morning and Friday morning. Also on Friday, Zelensky’s deputy chief of staff, Kirill Tymoshenko, said construction had begun on a barrier made of concrete posts with barbed wire along the border with Belarus. Russia used Belarus as a staging area for troops and weapons when it invaded Ukraine, and there are still concerns that authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko may send troops to Ukraine.
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Leicester broadcast from Kyiv. Sam Mednick in Kyiv and Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia contributed.
