Rohit Kachroo reports on the consequences of Russia’s withdrawal from occupied Kherson Russia said its troops had completed their withdrawal from a major city in southern Ukraine on Friday, paving the way for victorious Ukrainian forces to retake the only temporary capital seized by Russia during the nearly nine-month war. In a statement carried by Russian state news agencies, the ministry said the withdrawal was completed at 5 a.m. Friday and not a single unit of military equipment was left behind. ITV News Global Security Editor Rohit Kachroo said today’s developments marked the “most successful, most important day for the Ukrainians so far”. Videos and photos on social media showed excited residents taking to the streets and a Ukrainian flag flying over a monument in Kherson’s main square for the first time since the city was seized in early March. Some footage showed crowds cheering men in military uniform. Ukrainians cheer men in military uniform as residents take to the streets of Kherson Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy hailed Friday as a “historic day,” adding that Ukrainian special forces were in the city. He said: “Thank you to every soldier and every unit of the Defense Forces who are making this offensive operation in the south possible now.” Ukrainian intelligence has urged Russian soldiers who may still be in the city to surrender pending Ukrainian forces’ arrival. “Your command has left you at the mercy of fate,” she said in a statement. “Your commanders are urging you to put on civilian clothes and try to escape Kherson on your own. Obviously, you won’t be able to.” A Ukrainian regional official, Serhii Khlan, disputed the Russian Defense Ministry’s claim that the retreating 30,000 troops took all 5,000 pieces of equipment with them, saying “a lot” of material was left behind. In villages outside Kherson, some people have not left their homes for eight months since Russian soldiers began occupying the area. The ITV News Ukraine team were among the first people outside Ludmila Voznyak’s village of Dudchany to speak to since Russia invaded. Ludmila Voznyak, who lives in the now liberated area, speaks to ITV News and gives them grapes she grew during the occupation Ms Voznyak said: “All the time I knew our soldiers would come and we would win. When I saw them here I started to cry. I hugged them, kissed them because little children die for no reason.” Global Security editor Rohit Kachroo and his team then traveled with Ukrainian troops heading for Kherson. Why is the liberation of Kherson such a prize for Ukraine? Kherson, which had a pre-war population of 280,000, is the only regional capital to be captured by Russian forces. The city and surrounding areas fell into Moscow’s hands in the first days of the war as Russian troops quickly pushed their offensive north from the Crimean peninsula – the region illegally annexed by the Kremlin in 2014. Its loss was a major blow to Ukraine due to its location on the Dnieper River near the mouth of the Black Sea and its role as a major industrial center. Ukrainian resistance fighters have been challenging Russian troops for control of the city ever since, with acts of sabotage and assassinations of officials appointed by Moscow. Kherson is also at a point where Ukraine can cut off fresh water from the Dnieper to Crimea. Kyiv blocked these vital supplies after annexing the Crimean peninsula, and Putin cited the need to restore them as a reason behind his decision to invade Ukraine. Russia’s final withdrawal came six weeks after President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed the Kherson region and three other Ukrainian provinces, vowing they would remain Russian forever. Moscow’s forces still control about 70% of the greater Kherson region after the withdrawal. The Kremlin remained defiant on Friday, insisting the withdrawal was in no way an embarrassment for Putin. Moscow continues to see the entire Kherson region as part of Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. He added that the Kremlin does not regret holding celebrations just over a month ago to celebrate the annexation of occupied or partially occupied areas of Ukraine. Tens of thousands of residents have already been evacuated from an area around Kherson. Credit: AP The General Staff of Ukraine’s army said Russian forces left looted houses, destroyed power lines and mined roads in their wake. Ukraine’s presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak predicted Thursday that the departing Russians would seek to turn Kherson into a “city of death” and would continue shelling it after they relocate across the Dnieper River. Some sections of the Ukrainian government could barely hide their glee at the pace of the Russian withdrawal. “Russian military leaves battlefields in triathlon fashion: steeplechase, broad jump, swim,” tweeted Andriy Yermak, a senior presidential adviser. Videos on social media showed villagers hugging Ukrainian soldiers. Recapturing the city of Kherson could give Ukraine a strong position from which to extend its southern counteroffensive into other Russian-held areas, possibly including Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014. But from its new troop positions on the east bank, the Kremlin could try to escalate the war, which US estimates showed may already have killed or wounded tens of thousands of civilians and hundreds of thousands of soldiers. General Ben Hodges, the former commander of US military forces in Europe, described the Kherson retreat as a “colossal failure” for Russia and said he expected Ukrainian commanders to work to keep pressure on Russia’s depleted forces before from a possible future push for Crimea next year. “It’s too early to plan the victory parade, for sure. But I would wait until the end of this year — so in the next, say, eight weeks — the Ukrainians will be able to start setting the conditions for the decisive phase of this campaign, which is the liberation of Crimea, which I believe that it will be done by the summer”, he said. Meanwhile, a Russian S-300 missile attack overnight killed seven people in Mykolaiv, about 42 miles from the regional capital of Kherson, Mr Zelenskyy’s office said on Friday morning. Rescue crews sifted through the rubble of a five-story apartment building in search of survivors. Zelensky called the missile attack “the terrorist state’s cynical response to our successes on the front.” “Russia is not abandoning its despicable tactics. And we will not give up our fight. The occupiers will be held accountable for every crime against Ukraine and Ukrainians,” Zelensky said. A woman is comforted by military personnel as she cries at the scene of a nighttime shelling in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, on Friday. Credit: AP The Russian Defense Ministry did not acknowledge the attack on a residential building in Mykolaiv, saying only that an ammunition depot was destroyed “in the vicinity of the city”. The mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Sienkevych, said Russia could step up its shelling of his city in light of Ukraine’s advances. “The more success the Ukrainian military has, the more Russia lowers the bar on terrorism,” he said. Sienkevych said that S-300 missiles fired from the Kherson region can reach Mykolaiv within a minute. Some 149 civilians have been killed and 700 people have been seriously injured in the city since the war began on February 24. The president’s office said Russian drones, rockets and heavy artillery strikes in eight areas killed at least 14 civilians between Thursday morning and Friday morning. Satellite image of the northern span of the damaged Antonovskiy Bridge. Credit: Satellite Image ©2022 Maxar Technologies The status of the key Antonivskiy bridge connecting the west and east banks of the Dnieper in the Kherson region remained unclear on Friday. Russian media reported that the bridge was blown up after the Russian withdrawal, while pro-Kremlin reporters released video of the bridge missing a large section, which was not independently verified by ITV News. However, Sergei Geliseev, a Russian official in the Kherson region, told the Interfax news agency that the bridge had not been blown up. Want a quick and special update on the biggest news? 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