8:08am: Russia’s retreat from Kherson was not as fluid as Russia’s defence ministry suggested
After Ukraine’s triumphant recovery of Kherson – the only regional capital Moscow had captured in the nine months since Russia’s invasion, reports suggest the Russian withdrawal was chaotic.
“We have seen reports that Russian soldiers have been abandoning not just their uniforms but their weapons as well and that they were told to escape back to Russian territory however possible. We have even seen reports that some soldiers have died while trying to swim accross the Dnipro river.” FRANCE 24’s Luke Shrago reports from Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky declared Kherson “ours” after Russia withdrew troops from the city, which the US hailed Saturday as an “extraordinary victory”.
“We are winning battles on the ground. But the war continues,” foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said after Ukraine’s triumphant recovery of Kherson – the only regional capital Moscow had captured in the nine months since Russia’s invasion.
In the port city located on the Black Sea, the Ukrainian national anthem rang out in the central Kherson square as a small crowd sang along while huddled around a bonfire, a video published by Ukraine’s parliament on social media showed.
6:30am: White House hails Ukraine’s ‘extraordinary victory’ in Kherson
The White House on Saturday hailed what it said appeared to be an “extraordinary victory” for Ukraine in recapturing the city of Kherson from Russian occupiers.
“It does look as though the Ukrainians have just won an extraordinary victory where the one regional capital that Russia had seized in this war is now back under a Ukrainian flag – and that is quite a remarkable thing,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters as he accompanied President Joe Biden to the ASEAN summit in Cambodia.
Sullivan was speaking after Ukrainian troops entered the city, which was one of the lynchpins in Russia’s occupation of swathes of Ukraine.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and AP )