Russia’s defense ministry said on Friday it had finished withdrawing its troops from the western bank of the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region, a withdrawal that marks another humiliating setback for Moscow in its war in Ukraine
In a statement carried by Russia’s state news agencies, the ministry said the withdrawal was completed by 5am on Friday (14:00 AEDT) and that not a single unit of equipment was left behind military
The areas from which the Russian army departed included the city of Kherson, the only regional capital that Moscow seized during its 8.5-month invasion of Ukraine.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Wednesday ordered the withdrawal of troops from Kherson and nearby areas after his top general in Ukraine reported that the loss of supply routes during the counteroffensive in southern Ukraine meant the defense was “useless”. (AP)
The Kremlin remained defiant on Friday, insisting the withdrawal was in no way an embarrassment to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Moscow continues to see the Kherson region as part of Russia.
He added that the Kremlin does not regret throwing parties just over a month ago to celebrate the illegal annexation of Kherson and three other Ukrainian regions.
Moscow ordered a partial withdrawal from the region on Wednesday, marking one of the biggest military setbacks for the Kremlin since the war began.
A local Ukrainian official in the region told CNN on Friday that he could “neither confirm nor deny” whether Russian forces have withdrawn from the city of Kherson.
Metro train passes over the bridge over the Dnipro River in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Nov. 11, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Kravchenko)
“We maintain the ‘informational silence’ mode,” said Yuriy Sobolevskyi, first deputy of Ukraine’s Kherson regional council.
“We do not comment on Ukrainian military movement or enemy military movement.”
An image circulating on social media on Friday showed a Ukrainian flag in the center of Kherson, although there is no indication that the Ukrainian army is still in the city.
Sobolevskyi, the Ukrainian official, also refused to confirm the veracity of social media images of the Ukrainian flag in the center of the city of Kherson.
“I can’t confirm it’s a real photo,” he said. “But I can say that it is Svobody Square (Freedom Square), where all the anti-occupation rallies took place. The Resistance movement was in Kherson all the time, since the occupation began. The people has shown his patriotic attitude with patriotic graffiti, ribbons, flags, etc.”
Ukrainian residents of a town on the western outskirts of the city of Kherson have raised a Ukrainian flag and torn down Russian billboards, according to social media videos geolocated by CNN.
The videos are from the town of Bilozerka, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) west of the city of Kherson.
A video shows a Ukrainian flag flying over a World War II memorial. Another shows residents tearing down billboards with a young girl holding a Russian flag, which reads: “Russia is here forever.”
Shortly before the Russian announcement, the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the situation in the Kherson region as “difficult”.
He reported Russian shelling of some of the towns and cities that Ukrainian forces retook in recent weeks during their counteroffensive in the Kherson region.
Ukrainian officials were wary of the Russian withdrawal announced this week, fearing that their soldiers could be ambushed in the city of Kherson, which had a pre-war population of 280,000. Military analysts had also predicted that it would take at least a week for the Russian military to complete the troop withdrawal.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Thursday that retreating Russian troops laid mines in Kherson to turn it into a “city of death.” He also predicted that they would bombard the city after moving across the Dnieper River.
The condition of the key Antonivskiy bridge that connects the western and eastern banks of the Dnieper in the Kherson region remained unclear on Friday and could be key to determining whether the Russians have abandoned the city of Kherson.
Russian army soldiers stand next to their trucks during a demonstration against Russian occupation in Svobody (Freedom) Square in Kherson, Ukraine, Monday, March 7, 2022. (AP Photo, File) (AP)
Russian media reports suggested that the bridge was blown up after the Russian withdrawal; Pro-Kremlin journalists published images of the bridge with a large section missing. But Sergei Yeliseyev, an official stationed by Russia in the Kherson region, told the Interfax news agency that “the Antonivskiy bridge has not been blown up, it is in the same condition.”
Recapturing the city could provide Ukraine with a launching pad for supplies and troops to try to retake other lost territories in the south, including Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014.
From the new positions of its forces on the eastern bank, however, the Kremlin could seek to escalate the war, which US assessments showed could have killed or wounded tens of thousands of civilians and hundreds of thousands of soldiers.