After almost nine months of battle, Russia said on Friday that it had finished removing its soldiers from Kherson in southern Ukraine. Kherson was the only regional capital that Russia’s forces had managed to seize.
The Kherson region and the city of Kherson were annexed by Russia in a spectacular ceremony in late September, and the Kremlin asserted that the area was still a part of Russia.
The declaration was made shortly after Russian airstrikes on Mykolaiv, a city close to Kherson that Moscow’s forces have been pounding for months, killed at least seven people when they struck a residential structure there.
The transfer of Russian forces to the left bank of the Dnipro River was finished today at 5:00 a.m. Moscow time (0200 GMT).
No military hardware or weapons were left on the right bank, according to a statement posted on social media by the Russian defense ministry.
After Moscow stated this week that it will withdraw soldiers to defensive positions on the east side of the river in Kherson, which would be a huge Russian defeat in an area Vladimir Putin claimed to have conquered, Ukrainian authorities have remained suspicious.
However, the Kremlin rejected Friday any claims that the region’s status had altered as a result of the pullback.
No remorse
“The Russian Federation is concerned about this.
Nothing has changed and nothing can change in this “Reporters were informed by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
In a lavish ceremony held in the Kremlin at the end of September, Vladimir Putin formally annexed four Ukrainian areas, including the Kherson region, while simultaneously pledging to protect them from Kyiv by any means necessary.
When asked by journalists if Russia now regretted annexing Kherson, Peskov responded that there were “no regrets” over the action.
Kherson was the only regional capital that Russian forces were able to occupy after President Vladimir Putin proclaimed Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. It was also the first significant metropolitan center to be captured by Russian forces.
A political and symbolic setback for Putin would result with its seizure, but it would also provide access for Ukrainian forces to the whole Kherson area, giving them access to both the Black Sea in the east and the Sea of Azov in the west.
Additionally, it would interfere with a crucial land link that connects Russia’s mainland to the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Following a deadly Russian attack on a residential structure in the southern city of Mykolaiv, Moscow said that it had finished withdrawing in Kherson.
Mykolaiv “cynical assault”
In the early phases of their invasion in February, Russian soldiers were unable to take the Black Sea city from Ukraine, but they have been blasting rockets and missiles at the beleaguered city for months.
A correspondent from AFP who was on the scene of the attack noticed a huge hole carved in a residential structure designed in the Soviet style and emergency personnel clearing the area of debris while wearing yellow helmets.
The governor of the Mykolaiv area, Vitaliy Kim, said on social media that six people had died during the most recent Russian army onslaught on the city, which has been under siege for months.
A “cynical response to our triumphs at the front,” according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, was the strike.
He declared late on Thursday that his forces had taken back more than 40 towns and villages in southern Ukraine as part of a counteroffensive that had been underway since August.
In the meantime, the United States unveiled a new $400 million security assistance package for Kyiv that will include defense systems and surface-to-air missiles as Ukraine continues to suffer the effects of significant recent Russian airstrikes that targeted crucial infrastructure.
