‘We are Ukraine’: locals hail Russian retreat from Kherson, Zelensky calls battles ‘hell’
- Images distributed by the Ukrainian military showed Kherson residents dancing around a bonfire singing ‘Chervona Kalyna’, a patriotic song
- Kherson was one of four regions in Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed to have annexed in September
Russian forces destroyed key infrastructure in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson before fleeing, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, as his counterparts in Russia and Iran vowed to deepen economic, political and trade ties.
Zelensky described as hellish battles in the eastern region of Donetsk, where pro-Moscow forces were putting up a much stiffer fight after Russia abandoned on Friday the only regional capital it had captured since the war began in February.
Jubilant residents of Kherson welcomed arriving troops while Zelensky said authorities, in their efforts to stabilise the region, had dealt with nearly 2,000 mines, tripwires and unexploded shells left by the departing Russians.
Russians “everywhere have the same goal: to humiliate people as much as possible. But we will restore everything, believe me,” Zelensky said in a video address on Saturday.
“Before fleeing from Kherson, the occupiers destroyed all the critical infrastructure: communications, water, heat, electricity.”
Ukraine’s success in Kherson, where its troops now control more than 60 regional settlements, as well as in other places, benefited partly from resistance in the Donetsk region, despite repeated Russian attacks, Zelensky added.
