Russia to withdraw from Kherson, the only regional capital in Ukraine that it had captured

Kyiv, Ukraine — Russia’s military has announced that it’s withdrawing from the western bank of the Dnieper River in Ukraine‘s southern Kherson region, annexed by Moscow in September. The top Russian military commander in Ukraine, Gen. Sergei Surovikin, reported to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu Wednesday that it was impossible to deliver supplies to the city of Kherson and other areas on the western bank, and Shoigu agreed with his proposal to retreat and set up defenses on the eastern bank.
 
The withdrawal from the city of Kherson is a major setback for Russia — it is the only regional capital Russian forces had seized during the eight-month war.

The Russian-installed authorities ordered all residents of Kherson to leave “immediately” in late October, ahead of an expected advance by Ukrainian troops who have been waging a counteroffensive aimed at recapturing the occupied area.

Ukraine’s presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak stressed on Wednesday that the effort to retake the city wasn’t yet complete, however, saying as long as the Ukrainian flag isn’t flying over Kherson, it makes “no sense” to discuss a Russian retreat.  

Last week, CBS News senior foreign correspondent Holly Williams caught up with one of the Ukrainian troops — a former crane operator who joined the army as the war began — who has helped to liberate village after village on the fringes of Kherson city.

Private Andriy Rogalski was keen to show Williams the small town of Vysokopillia. Like many other communities in the Kherson region, Russian forces occupied it for months, leaving many of its homes splintered. Rogalski described to CBS News how Ukrainian forces had surrounded the town, grinding down the Russians until the remaining troops fled in September. 

On Vysokopillia’s main street, Williams and Rogalski met 74-year-old Nadia Sabsai as she headed home on her bicycle. She showed CBS News the basement of her apartment building, where she said eight families had taken shelter, with their children quivering in fear, during the intense battle to liberate the town.

Russia’s brutal occupation of much of the Kherson region has left many towns like Vysokopillia reeling, and there’s much ground left to reclaim. More than half of Kherson lies east of the Dnieper River, and the orders handed down by Russia’s defense chief on Wednesday were for Russian forces to set up their new defensive line on its eastern bank.

Surovikin, Putin’s relatively new overall commander in Ukraine, whose brutal tactics in Syria’s civil war earned him the nickname “General Armageddon,” told the defense minister in Moscow that the decision to pull Russia’s forces back to the bank of the Dnieper was “not easy,” but he said it would “save the lives of our military.”