After the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson, Ukraine on Friday 11/11, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky celebrated what he called a “historic” day.
Zelensky wrote Kherson “our” on his Telegram channel. In the message, the president confirmed that special units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were in the city after leaving Moscow.
Photos taken in the city show hundreds of Ukrainians celebrating Russia’s withdrawal.
- Russia withdrew and decided to withdraw its troops from the key Ukrainian city of Kherson.
A video confirmed by the BBC shows residents waving flags and chanting in honor of Ukrainian soldiers: “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!, Glory to the Ukrainian Armed Forces!”
Earlier, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that about 30,000 soldiers had left the Kherson region towards the east bank of the Dnipro River.
The city was the only major regional capital captured by Moscow since the start of the occupation in February.
And while the Russian government doesn’t use the word “withdrawal,” Kherson’s abandonment by his troops is seen by many analysts as a “humiliating setback” for Vladimir Putin’s plans.
As Andrei Goryanov, head of the BBC’s Moscow office, recalls, just a month ago, Putin had declared that this region would remain in Russia “forever”.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied that this was an insult to Putin.
Peskov told reporters who questioned him on the subject, “There are many different experts, some say this, some say other things. We do not want to comment on any of the statements. The special military operation continues.”
But by then, Kherson was at the center of Moscow’s Ukraine strategy.
The occupation of the city allowed Russia land access from the mainland to the Crimean peninsula; this control the Kremlin planned to use to cut off Ukraine from the Black Sea to reach the western cities of Odessa and Nikolaiev.
But Ukraine’s military advances in the south, combined with operations such as those that led to the sinking of Russia’s flagship Moscow in the Black Sea, exposed the shortcomings and poor preparation of Putin’s army.
Thanks to the US-made HIMARS missiles, the Ukrainian troops also managed to destroy the bridges connecting the two banks of the Dnipro River and cut off the supply of ammunition and supplies to the Russian soldiers.
Considering that the withdrawal was “inevitable and imminent”, Goryanov says, “If the Russian troops in Kherson stayed there any longer, they would starve to death.”
But it is also possible that, from a military standpoint, this withdrawal was “the most sensible thing the Russians have done since the beginning of the war,” as the BBC’s Special Representative for Ukraine Jeremy Bowen explained.
Bowen says the Russians may have complicated an eventual Ukrainian offensive by leaving their already untenable positions west of the city to reorganize along the river.
As satellite images show, the eastern bank of Dnipro is fortified from the Nova Kakhovka dam to the Black Sea? This also reveals that Russian troops dug more than 100 miles of defenses along the river,
Russia will build shelters concrete to defend this bank of the river.
The Ukrainian press compared these fortifications to the “Atlantic Wall” created by the Nazis during World War II to prevent Allied landings.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Russia was under pressure and that Russia’s withdrawal was “another victory” for the Ukrainians.
But the withdrawal of troops is not without danger, as Mijailo Podoliak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, warned.
For starters, Russian forces may have mined the city and set traps for Ukrainian soldiers entering the area.
Leaving the western bank of the river, Russian troops also “evacuated” large numbers of civilians, often by force. According to Podoliak, Russia could thus ruthlessly bombard Kherson.
Moreover, as the adviser recalled, whenever Russia suffered a military defeat, its response was to punish the people even more. Therefore, missile and drone attacks can make winter even more difficult for Ukrainians.
On Wednesday, 11/09) Zelensky assured him that he was proceeding “with the greatest care, callousness, without unnecessary risks, with the goal of liberating all our lands so that casualties are as few as possible”.
In recent days, Ukrainian forces have recaptured the key town of Snigurivka, about 50 km north of Kherson, which represents an important rail communication hub for Nikolayev.
Advances were also made towards Berislav on the western bank of Dnipro. According to the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, a total of 264 square kilometers were saved.
Marina Miron, a research fellow in Defense Studies at Kings College London, tells the BBC that Kherson, which had a population of 380,000 before the war, was “the gateway to Crimea”. “Taking it back could facilitate the path to the reconquest of Crimea, something Ukraine is trying to achieve in this war.”
According to Andrei Goryanov, Kherson’s withdrawal had “an enormous military, symbolic and political impact.”
In addition to the demoralizing effect of the defeat on the Russian troops, the withdrawal from Kherson and the construction of a new line of defense against a possible attack on the Crimean peninsula change the course of the conflict: it now becomes war. Defense for Russia.
On a symbolic level, Kherson also represents a setback for Moscow: After eight months of war, Russian forces failed to show any significant results.
But the political impact is much more severe, according to the BBC’s Russian correspondent.
“The Putin regime is based on the idea that Russia is a superpower. A major defeat against a much smaller country takes this whole idea under control,” explains Goryanov.
As a result, the Russian president received criticism from the harshest wing of his regime, and the word “negotiation” is increasingly heard among Russians.
Ukraine, for its part, has already said that it is not ready to negotiate until Russia withdraws from all occupied territories and pays compensation.
– This text was originally published at https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/internacional-63605045.
source: Noticias
