The order on Russian state television is short – but it is a bull’s eye: Wednesday evening the Russian Defense Ministry announced that the troops of President Vladimir Putin (70) were withdrawing from Kherson. The strategically important city in southern Ukraine has become the center of hostilities in recent weeks.
The Russian troops therefore want to withdraw to the left bank of the Dnieper River. “The decision to defend the left bank of the Dnieper is not an easy one, but we will save the lives of our soldiers and the fighting strength of the troop group,” General Sergei Surovikin, 56, told Russian state news agencies. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu (67) approved the withdrawal of all Russian troops from the right bank of the Dnieper River, a video shows.
Mysterious: It wasn’t until Wednesday afternoon that Kherson’s deputy chief died – according to official information in a traffic accident. Kirill Stremusov’s († 45) car was involved in an accident, said Moscow-appointed acting governor Vladimir Saldo. Whether the death was actually a coincidence or has something to do with the withdrawal of the troops from Kherson is completely unclear.
Russia cannibalized victory
With the withdrawal, Russia loses control in the south of the only Ukrainian regional capital it has captured since the war of aggression began in late February. For the Kremlin, the loss of Kherson is a brutal defeat. In addition, the Kherson region represented the last significant part of the “land bridge” from mainland Russia to Crimea, which Putin has been seeking since the illegal annexation of the peninsula in 2014, as the Washington Post writes.
ETH security analyst Niklas Masuhr (29) on Blick: “Kherson is important because the respective owner can make offensives impossible – if the Ukrainians take Kherson, Russian offensives in southwestern Ukraine are impossible and vice versa the Ukrainians cannot move from Kherson to the south.”
Russia had largely occupied the Kherson region in the early weeks of the war, and Russian troops marched into Kherson in early March. Russia quickly gained control and also exploited the victory in state propaganda. Andrei Turchak, general secretary of the General Council of Putin’s United Russia party, said on May 6 that “Kherson belongs to Russia forever”. The city was finally annexed in September, along with the regions of Zaporizhzhya, Luhansk and Donetsk, in violation of international law.
Crimea does not necessarily fall
Separately, Ukraine has repeatedly announced its intention to liberate the city and region of Kherson using Western weapons. Ukraine launched a counter-offensive in August and fierce fighting broke out again and again around the city. The Ukrainians repeatedly reported great destruction and high losses on the Russian side. This was often not independently verifiable. Recently, however, Russian military bloggers also took into account an imminent withdrawal of their own troops from the city of Kherson.
In early November, the pro-Russian government in Kherson ordered the evacuation of parts of the civilian population for the first time. About 100,000 people had been taken across the river, said Commander-in-Chief Sergei Surovikin, 56, who was elected by Putin at the time. Kiev condemned the move as “deportations”.
The city of Kherson, captured in the first days of the military offensive in Ukraine, was the main conquest of Russia. The region of the same name is of great strategic importance as it borders Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, which was annexed by Moscow in 2014.
However, the recapture of Kherson does not automatically mean that Crimea will fall. “Until then, the Ukrainians would have to fight their way through the defenses east of the Dnepr,” said ETH expert Mahsur. And that is exactly what Putin’s forces want to prevent.