Ukraine’s president said Friday that special military units have entered the city of Kherson, Ukraine. Russia withdrew all its troops from the city at 5 a.m. local time.
In a video address hours after Russia said it had completed withdrawing troops from the strategically key city, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: “As of now, our defenders are approaching the city. In quite a bit, we are going to enter. But special units are already in the city."
A Ukrainian regional official, Serhii Khlan, disputed the Russian Defense Ministry’s claim that the 30,000 retreating troops took all 5,000 pieces of equipment with them, saying “a lot” of hardware got left behind. He added that the Kremlin doesn’t regret holding festivities just over a month ago to celebrate the annexation of occupied or partially occupied regions of Ukraine, deferring all questions about the Kherson withdrawal to the Defense Ministry.
Ukrainian officials were wary of the Russian pullback announced this week, fearing their soldiers could get drawn into an ambush in Kherson city, which had a prewar population of 280,000. Military analysts also had predicted it would take Russia's military at least a week to complete the troop withdrawal.
“The Russian army leaves the battlefields in a triathlon mode: steeplechase, broad jumping, swimming,” Andriy Yermak, a senior presidential adviser, tweeted. Social media videos showed villagers hugging Ukrainian troops. “It’s too early to be planning the victory parade, for sure. But I would expect by the end of this year — so in the next, let’s say, eight weeks — the Ukrainians are going to be in place to start setting the conditions for the decisive phase of this campaign, which is the liberation of Crimea, which I think will happen by the summer,” he said in a telephone interview.
“My mind was blank at that moment. I thought it could not be true,” he said. “The cake she prepared for the celebration is still there.”
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