The Ukrainian leader visited the city of Kherson. Photo: AFP.
The President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, arrived on Monday in Kherson, the strategic city in the south of the country recovered from the Russians last week, in a visit full of symbolism, in which he raised the flag, sang the anthem and said that the return of the city to the hands of forces from his country supposes “the beginning of the end of the war”.
“This is the beginning of the end of the war,” Zelensky said. that, with everything, He made it clear that recovering the other territories controlled by Russia constitutes “a long and difficult road.”
“Russia has shown the world that it can kill, but all of us, our armed forces, our national guard and intelligence services have shown that it is impossible to kill Ukraine,” the president said in a statement by the Ukrainian presidency.
kyiv distributed pictures of Zelensky in Kherson singing the national anthem with his hand on his chest as the country’s blue and yellow flag was raised next to the city’s main administrative building.
Zelensky said that “the price of this war is high.” “There are people injured, a large number of deaths, there was fierce fighting, and the result is that today we are in the region,” added.
Oblivious to this show of confidence, the spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Dmitri Peskov denied that the Ukrainian leader’s visit meant anything to the status of the Kherson region, which Moscow formally annexed to Russia last month.
“You know very well that it is territory of the Russian Federation”, he claimed.
Russian forces left Kherson a few days ago after eight months of administration, allowing Ukrainian soldiers to enter last Friday.
This forced withdrawal of troops from Moscow due to the Ukrainian counter-offensive represents a new setback for President Vladimir Putin.
Russia continues to control most of the Kherson region, from the southern bank of the Dnieper. Photo: AFP
Despite this, the head of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg warned that “the next few months will be difficult” for Ukraine and that Putin’s goal is to “leave Ukraine cold and dark this winter.”
The Ukrainian electricity company Ukrenergo seemed to agree with him, saying that Russia destroyed a key power station before withdrawing from the west bank of the Dnieper River in Kherson.
While, In the Lugansk region, the Ukrainian army has retaken the village of Makiivka, 50 kilometers northeast of the strategic Russian-controlled city of Severonetsk, the Ukrainian presidency said.
In total, 12 towns in the region have returned to Ukrainian control, according to Governor Sergei Gaidai.
Stoltenberg, meanwhile, asked “not to make the mistake of underestimating Russia” at a press conference in The Hague, after having held a meeting with the Dutch government.
“We must not make the mistake of underestimating Russia. The Russian armed forces retain significant capabilities as well as large numbers of soldiers, and Russia has shown its willingness to take significant losses.”added the NATO chief.
“Putin’s goal is to leave Ukraine cold and dark this winter,” he continued, emphasizing the Russian attacks in recent weeks with missiles and drones against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, especially the energy network.
On Saturday, the office of Zelensky announced the start of the functions of the kyiv authorities in Kherson and later the head of the Ukrainian administration announced that a curfew will be in force in the city from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m.
Last Wednesday, the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, ordered the troops deployed to the left bank of the Dnieper River to be withdrawn to preserve the lives of the military and the combat capacity of the Army.
Photo: AFP.
Until the beginning of this month, according to official reports, 115,000 people had been evacuated to the left bank of the Dnieper River to avoid civilian casualties from the Ukrainian attacks.
This Monday it became known about the attack on “the facility that supplied energy to the entire right bank of the Kherson region and an important part of the Mykolaiv region”, which is “practically destroyed”, according to the director of Ukrenergo Volodimir Kudrytskyi.
For the official, it is “consequences of the anger of the occupiers before fleeing.”
“Most of the liberated part of the Kherson region has been without power since November 6,” Kudrytskyi said, who remarked that “everything we can is being done to provide electricity to people as soon as possible”.
Numerous countries condemned Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, launched on February 24, and support kyiv with arms supplies, donations, humanitarian aid and sanctions against Moscow.
In turn, Russia sent protest notes to all countries that supply weapons to Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that any arms shipment to kyiv would become a legitimate target for the Russian Armed Forces.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Atlantic Alliance countries are “playing with fire” by supplying weapons to Ukraine.
On Monday, days after the Russian withdrawal from Kherson, the Russian army announced that it had taken Pavlivka, a town in eastern Ukraine, a success for Moscow after weeks of retreats and withdrawals.
“On November 14, after fierce fighting, Russian soldiers completely liberated the town of Pavlivka in the Donetsk People’s Republic,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.using the name given by Russia to this eastern Ukrainian region that Moscow claims to annex.
In early November, the media reported heavy fighting near the town, with hundreds killed, wounded and missing on the Russian side. A Russian official had acknowledged losses, but not that great.
The Russian army also withdrew from most of the Kharkov region of northeastern Ukraine in early September.
