Kherson celebrates Russian retreat but faces daunting task of rebuilding

Residents of Kherson celebrated the end of Russia's eight-month occupation for the third straight day Sunday, even as they took stock of the extensive damage left behind in the southern Ukrainian city by the Kremlin's retreating forces.

A jubilant crowd gathered in Kherson's main square, despite the distant thumps of artillery fire that could be heard as Ukrainian forces pressed on with their effort to push out Moscow's invasion force.

"It's a new year for us now," said Karina Zaikina, 24, who wore on her coat a yellow-and-blue ribbon in Ukraine's national colours. "For the first time in many months, I wasn't scared to come into the city."

"Finally, freedom!" said 61-year-old resident Tetiana Hitina. "The city was dead."

But even as locals rejoiced, the evidence of Russia's ruthless occupation was all around, and Russian forces still control some 70 per centof the wider Kherson region.

WATCH | Ukraine celebrates retaking of Kherson:

Ukraine celebrates retaking of Kherson

2 years ago

Duration 2:02

The Ukrainian flag is once again flying throughout Kherson after troops successfully reclaimed the area six weeks after Russian troops seized the city.

With cellphone networks knocked out, Zaikina and others lined up to use a satellite phone connection set up for everyone's use in the square, enabling them to swap news with family and friends for the first time in weeks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that investigators had uncovered more than 400 Russian war crimes and found the bodies of both servicemen and civilians in areas of Kherson region freed from Russian occupation.

He said "stabilization and the restoration of law" had been established in 226 settlements affecting more than 100,000 residents. Arrests of Russian soldiers and mercenaries were proceeding.

'Humanitarian catastrophe'

In addition to the loss of its cellphone networks, Kherson is also without electricity or running water, and food and medical supplies are short. Residents said Russian troops plundered the city, carting away loot as they withdrew last week. They also wrecked key public infrastructure before retreating across the wide DniproRiver to its east bank.

One Ukrainian official described the situation in Kherson as "a humanitarian catastrophe."

"I don't understand what kind of people this is. I don't know why they did it," said resident Yevhen Teliezhenko, draped in a Ukrainian flag.

Still, he said, "it became easier to breathe" once the Russians had gone.

"There is no better holiday than what's happening now," he declared.

Ukrainian authorities said the demining of critical infrastructure is underway in the city. Reconnecting the electricity supply is the priority, with gas supplies already assured, Kherson regional governor Yaroslav Yanushevych said.

Yanushevychsaidauthorities had decided to maintain a curfew from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. local time and ban people from leaving or entering the city as a security measure.

"The enemy mined all critical infrastructure," Yanushevych told Ukrainian TV. "We are trying to meet within a few days and [then]open the city," he said.

'We won't leave anyone'

The Russian retreat fromKhersonmarked a triumphant milestone in Ukraine's pushback against Moscow's invasion almost nine months ago.In the past two months, Ukraine's military claimed to have retaken dozens of towns and villages north of the city ofKherson.

Zelenskyy vowed to keep up the pressure on Russian forces, reassuring the people in Ukrainian cities and villages that are still under occupation.

"We don't forget anyone; we won't leave anyone," he said.

The U.S. embassy in Kyiv tweeted comments Sunday by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who described the turnaround in Kherson as "an extraordinary victory" for Ukraine and "quite a remarkable thing."

The reversal came despite Putin's recent partial mobilization of reservists, raising available troop numbers by some 300,000. That has been hard for the Russian military to digest.

"Russian military leadership is trying and largely failing to integrate combat forces drawn from many different organizations and of many different types and levels of skill and equipment into a more cohesive fighting force in Ukraine," the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, a think tank that tracks the conflict, commented.

British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the Kremlin will be "worried" by the loss of Kherson but warned against underestimating Moscow. "If they need more cannon fodder, that is what they'll be doing," he said.

Kakhovka next to be reclaimed?

In what could perhaps be the next district to fall in Ukraine's march on territory illegally annexed by Moscow, the Russian-appointed administration of the Kakhovka district, east of Kherson city, announced Saturday it was evacuating its employees.

"Today, the administration is the number one target for Ukrainian attacks," said the Moscow-installed leader of Kakhovka, Pavel Filipchuk.

"Therefore, by order of the government of the Kherson region, we, as an authority, are moving to a safer territory, from where we will lead the district," he wrote on Telegram.

Kakhovka is located on the left bank of the DniproRiver, upstream of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station.

The deputy head of Ukraine's presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said six people died on Saturday as a result of Russian shelling.

Writing on Telegram on Sunday, he said four people were killed and one wounded in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, two were killed in the Kherson region, and two wounded in the central Dnipropetrovsk region.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kulebahas sought to temper the excitement over the Russian retreat from Kherson.

"We are winning battles on the ground, but the war continues," he said from Cambodia, where he was attending a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Russian Foreign Minister SergeiLavrov told journalists Sunday that a joint statement on the results of the summit was not adopted, since "the American side and its partners insisted on an unacceptable assessment of the situation in Ukraine and around it."

The Kremlin is angered by the support Ukraine receives from its Western allies, including the United States.