Ukraine says troops have entered Kherson city after Russian retreat
The Ukrainian announcement came soon after Russia said Friday that its troops had finished withdrawing from the west bank of the Dnieper River in the Ukrainian city of Kherson, claiming that no soldiers or military equipment were left behind.
Losing Kherson would mark a major military setback for the Kremlin in Ukraine and a blow to its efforts to consolidate its grip over swaths of the country’s south.
Friday’s withdrawal came sooner than Western officials had forecast. U.S. Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, predicted Tuesday that a Russian pullout from the city in southern Ukrainian would take “days and maybe even weeks.” Ukrainian officials had also expressed skepticism that Russia could withdraw quickly from Kherson.
“At 5 a.m. Moscow time, the redeployment of Russian troops to the left bank of the Dnieper River was completed,” Russia’s Defense Ministry said Friday. “Not a single piece of military equipment and weaponry was left … and there were no losses of personnel, weapons, equipment,” the statement said.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu issued the order on television Wednesday for troops to pull back across the river to preserve their forces. With the fog of war engulfing the battlefield in Kherson, it remained unclear as of Wednesday whether some Russian forces could be stranded on the west side of the river, The Washington Post reported.
On Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on Kherson, describing it as a matter for the Russian Defense Ministry, but he said the “Kherson region is a subject of the Russian Federation. This status is fixed.”
Fighting has gripped Kherson even as the Kremlin claimed the region as its own, along with three other Ukrainian territories, in a widely condemned annexation in late September. A withdrawal from the city means relinquishing the capital of a region that Russian President Vladimir Putin declared part of Russia weeks ago.
A Ukrainian official, who was not authorized to speak to the press and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said earlier on Friday that Ukrainian forces had entered three parts of Kherson city, including the central Suvorovsky region.
Officials in Kyiv had voiced concern this week about whether some Russian forces could be hiding in the city and accused departing troops of destroying infrastructure.
Footage and a picture shared by a Ukrainian government adviser and the public broadcaster on Friday appeared to show damage to the strategic Antonovsky Bridge, which links Kherson to territory in southern Ukraine controlled by Russian forces. The Washington Post could not immediately verify the footage.
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