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Unlike previous Russian retreats that turned into panicked flight under Ukrainian fire, the ongoing withdrawal from the region of Kherson is a much more orderly affair.
Russian forces are falling back to the eastern bank of the Dnipro River following an order from Russian military command, while Ukrainian troops carefully advance toward the city, capturing towns and villages on the way to Kherson.
There’s a reason for the caution.
Russia wants to “turn Kherson into a ‘city of death,’” warned Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He said the Russian military “mines everything they can: apartments, sewers. Artillery on the left bank plans to turn the city into ruins.”
On Thursday afternoon, a group of Ukrainian servicemen posted footage on social media from the village of Kyselivka, less than 30 kilometers north of Kherson and apparently abandoned by the Russian army. The soldiers held up Ukraine’s blue and yellow flag against the backdrop of a village administrative building.
There were also clips of Ukrainian troops being greeted by tearful locals in other liberated villages.
When Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu ordered the withdrawal on Wednesday, Ukrainian authorities worried the Russians were setting a trap. Now there’s more of a sense that the pullout may be for real.
“Just as the enemy left Kiev and Kharkiv region, left Snake Island, the probable exit from Kherson is the result of our active actions,” Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, said on Thursday. He added: “The Defence Forces of Ukraine have destroyed the logistic lines and support system, disrupted the enemy’s command and control system. Thus, the enemy was left with no other option but to resort to fleeing.”
He said that since early October, Ukrainian troops advanced 36.5 kilometers in the Kherson region, liberating 41 settlements.
Zelenskyy talked Thursday with U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and they put out a joint statement saying: “any withdrawal of Russian troops from occupied Kherson would show significant progress by Ukrainian forces and confirm the weakness of the Russian offensive, but it would be right to continue to exercise caution until the Ukrainian flag is raised over the city.”
Kyiv’s caution comes from the more organized nature of the current Russian pullback; their retreat in the eastern Kharkiv region in September looked more like a rout.
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelenskyy’s office, said in an online interview Wednesday night that Russian troops “withdraw in a very organized way.”
There is no “rapid flight” of troops, he said, adding: “They rolled back, but only from the first line of defense. Now, they defend the second and third lines … They destroy the bridges behind them. Often they destroy the bridges before their withdrawal, and they lay pontoon bridges in places that are unexpected for us … They’ve gotten smarter.”
He added that the Russian army was “densely mining” the territories it was leaving to complicate the advance of Ukrainian units.
“There are two main questions now: How much time the withdrawal would take, and whether they will hold the city of Kherson itself,” Arestovych said.
Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, branded Wednesday’s Russian withdrawal announcement by Shoygu and General Sergei Surovikin “a theatrical performance.”
“These are signals that Russia sends in the process of war to [domestic] consumers of information and those outside [of Russia]. But we remind once again that we do not trust the words of the Russian Federation,” Maliar said during a media briefing.
“You can’t believe the Russians. We have been convinced of this many times,” she added. “The art of war, in particular, includes the art of deceiving the enemy.”
Source: Politico
