Ukrainian soldiers have entered the strategic southern city of Kherson following Russian withdrawal, the country’s defence intelligence said on Friday, marking a major victory for Kyiv over Moscow that has held swathes of the region for eight months.
Videos shared on Ukrainian Telegram groups showed crowds of ecstatic residents of the regional capital welcoming soldiers outside an administrative building.
In the clips people could be heard shouting “ZSU” the acronym for the Ukrainian armed forces.
The country’s defence intelligence agency said in a statement to Reuters that the southern city was coming back under Ukrainian control after being occupied by Russian forces since March.
The news broke after Russia said its troops had finished retreating from the western bank of the Dnipro river which divides Ukraine’s southern Kherson region in half.
Russia’s defence ministry said the withdrawal was completed at 5am on Friday and no military equipment was left behind.
The pullback, which comes two months after Russian forces withdrew from eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, represents another huge setback for Moscow in invasion launched in February.
Yuri Sak, a senior advisor to the defence ministry called it an “important moment for our morale and our fight for our country”.
Speaking to The Independent he said the counteroffensive in the south had been “well planned” and based on “careful reconnaissance and intelligence” but the fight had not ended.
“This is far from over, there are still tens of thousands of Russians in the southern regions.”
Kherson was one of the Kremlin’s first targets when the invasion was launched in February because of its strategic location bordering the Crimea, that President Putin illegally annexed in 2014.
The capture of swathes of Kherson Oblast allowed a land bridge to the Black Sea Peninsula that is home to a huge Russian military force and Black Sea Fleet.
Kherson’s main city was the last remaining regional capital that the Kremlin had captured and held in Ukraine since the start of the invasion.
Russia’s defence ministry said earlier on Friday that it had completed the withdrawal of its troops from Kherson.
Videos posted on Ukrainian telegram groups purported to show Russian soldiers crossing bridges over the river Dnipro by foot.
Later Russia’s Interfax news Agency reported that more than 30,000 of its servicemen had withdrawn to the eastern bank of the Dnipro River.
It added Russia had not suffered any loss of personnel or equipment during the withdrawal.
The ministry did not comment on Ukrainian officials’ assertions that Russian troops in Kherson had been ordered to change into civilian clothes.
But Ukrainian commanders as well as chief advisor to President Volodymyr Zelensky told The Independent that Ukraine had successfully cut Moscow’s supplies forcing its retreat.
