The news followed weeks of Ukrainian advances towards the city (Picture: AP)
Russian troops have been ordered to withdraw from Kherson in yet another humiliation for Vladimir Putin.
His top commander in Ukraine Sergei Surovikin – whose ruthlessness on the battlefield earned him the sinister sobriquet ‘General Armageddon’ – said soldiers would retreat from the western bank of the Dnipro River.
The withdrawal from the city of Kherson is a major setback for Russia. It is the only regional capital the Kremlin had seized during the eight-month war.
In televised comments, Surovikin said it was no longer possible to keep Kherson city supplied.
He added: ‘We will save the lives of our soldiers and fighting capacity of our units. Keeping them on the right (western) bank is futile. Some of them can be used on other fronts.’
The announcement had been anticipated by Russia’s influential war bloggers, who described it as a bitter blow.
‘Apparently we will leave the city, no matter how painful it is to write about it now,’ said the War Gonzo blog, which has more than 1.3 million subscribers on Telegram.
‘In simple terms, Kherson can’t be held with bare hands. Yes, this is a black page in the history of the Russian army. Of the Russian state. A tragic page.’
The news followed weeks of Ukrainian advances towards the city and a race by Russia to relocate more than 100,000 of its residents.
The Kherson region is one of four provinces of Ukraine that Putin illegally annexed and subsequently placed under Russian martial law.
The Russian military has concentrated much of its firepower on securing control of the others – Luhansk, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia.
Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated that the return of all occupied territory was a condition for any peace talks with Russia.
Moscow is unlikely to give up its internationally unrecognized claim to the regions annexed in September or to Crimea, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014.
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The announcement marked one of Russia’s most significant retreats and a potential turning point in the war.
