Zelenskyy visits liberated city of Kherson

Lviv, Ukraine, Nov 14 (EFE).- Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday visited the recently liberated city of Kherson, which was the only regional capital Russia managed to gain control over since invading the eastern European nation nine months ago.

On November 11, Zelenskyy announced that the city of Kherson, in the homonymous region on the Black Sea, was once again under Ukrainian control after Russian troops withdrew to the other side of the Dnieper river which acts as a natural border between the north and south of the oblast.

The following day, the Kyiv presidential office reported that the Kherson regional military chief, Yaroslav Yanushevych, the national police and security service employees had already started work in the city and in the surrounding areas that have also been freed from Russian occupation.

Kherson was among four Ukrainian regions including neighboring Zaporizhizhia, and the eastern Donbas oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk, that were unilaterally annexed by Russian president Vladimir Putin in late September.

At the time, Putin proclaimed that Kherson would remain Russian “forever.”

The head of Russia’s military in Ukraine, Sergey Surovikin, announced a military retreat to the left bank of the Dnieper river last week, claiming that Moscow’s forces would shore up their defensive lines.

Kyiv has warned that Russian soldiers could still attempt to attack the regional capital of Kherson from across the river and has called on the population not to return to the area until it is completely safe. EFE

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