Zelenskyy calls Kherson liberation ‘beginning of the end of the war’ | CBC News

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday visited the newly liberated southern city of Kherson, where he posed with Ukrainian troops in a central square.

Zelenskyy has previously appeared unexpectedly in other front-line zones at crucial junctures of the war, to support troops and congratulate them for battlefield exploits.

Video footage showed Zelenskyy waving to residents who waved at him from an apartment window and yelled “Glory to Ukraine!” The reply “Glory to the heroes!” came back from Zelenskyy’s group, made up of soldiers and others.

“This is the beginning of the end of the war,” he said. “We are step by step coming to all the temporarily occupied territories.”

The liberation of Kherson after a grinding offensive that forced Russia to pull back its forces from the city was one of Ukraine’s biggest successes so far of the nearly nine-month invasion and a stinging blow for the Kremlin.

WATCH | Ukraine will extend fight against Russia this winter, says analyst:

Ukraine will continue hard push against Russia through winter, says analyst

Ukrainian troops appear ready to extend the fight with Russia in the southern part of the country into winter after Ukraine’s triumphant liberation of Kherson, says retired U.S. general Philip Breedlove, a former NATO supreme allied commander of Europe.

But NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, during a visit to The Hague on Monday, warned that “we should not make the mistake of underestimating Russia.”

“The Russian armed forces retain significant capability as well as a large number of troops, and Russia has demonstrated their willingness to bear significant losses,” Stoltenberg said.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Monday refused to comment on Zelenskyy’s visit to Kherson, saying only that “you know that it is the territory of the Russian Federation.”

Infrastructure challenges

After the Russian retreat, Ukrainian authorities say they are finding evidence of torture and other atrocities.

In his nightly video address on Sunday, Zelenskyy said without details that “investigators have already documented more than 400 Russian war crimes, and the bodies of both civilians and military personnel have been found.”

“In the Kherson region, the Russian army left behind the same atrocities as in other regions of our country,” he said. “We will find and bring to justice every murderer. Without a doubt.”

The end of Russia’s eight-month occupation of Kherson city has sparked days of celebration, but also exposed a humanitarian emergency, with residents living without power and water and short of food and medicines. Russia still controls about 70 per cent of the wider Kherson region.

Ukrainian police have called on residents to help identify people who collaborated with Russian forces.

Zelenskyy urged people in the liberated zone to also be alert for booby traps, saying: “Please, do not forget that the situation in the Kherson region is still very dangerous. First of all, there are mines. Unfortunately, one of our sappers was killed, and four others were injured while clearing mines.”

And he promised that essential services would be restored.

“We are doing everything to restore normal technical capabilities for electricity and water supply as soon as possible,” he said. “We will bring back transport and post. Let’s bring back ambulance and normal medicine.”

Residents said departing Russian troops plundered the city, carting away loot as they withdrew last week. They also wrecked key infrastructure before retreating across the wide Dnipro River to its east bank.

One Ukrainian official described the situation in Kherson as “a humanitarian catastrophe.”

Reconnecting the electricity supply is the priority, with gas supplies already assured, Kherson regional governor Yaroslav Yanushevych said.

The Russian pullout marked a triumphant milestone in Ukraine’s pushback against Moscow’s invasion almost nine months ago. In the past two months, Ukraine’s military claimed to have retaken dozens of towns and villages north of the city of Kherson.

The Ukrainian army has now reclaimed three major areas of the country in its counteroffensives — the area north of Kyiv, the northeastern region of Kharkiv and now Kherson and many neighbouring settlements.

The liberation of Kherson came some six weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed the Kherson region and three other provinces in southern and eastern Ukraine — in breach of international law — and declared them Russian territory.