Russian forces have retreated from a strategic village in the east after the Kremlin declared Moscow’s annexation illegal

Russian forces have retreated from a strategic city in the east after the West declared Moscow’s annexation of the region illegal.

The ministry said on Telegram that the allied troops were withdrawn from the settlement of Krasny Liman because of the encirclement threat.

“The current onslaught of criticism and reporting of operational military details by the Kremlin’s propagandists has come to resemble the milblogger discourse over the past week. The Kremlin narrative had focused on general statements of progress and avoided detailed discussions of current military operations. The Kremlin had never openly recognized a major failure in the war prior to its devastating loss in Kharkiv Oblast, which prompted the partial reserve mobilization.”

Russian-appointed quislings who were installed by Moscow to run the occupied regions of Ukraine have come in for some criticism. In a recent four-minute rant on the messaging app Telegram, the Russian-appointed deputy leader of Ukraine’s occupied Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov, lambasted Russian military commanders for allowing “gaps” on the battlefield that had allowed the Ukrainian military to make advances in the region, which is illegally claimed by Russia.

Ukrainian forces said earlier Saturday that they had entered Stavky, a village neighboring Lyman, according to Serhii Cherevatyi, the military spokesperson for the eastern grouping of Ukrainian forces.

The liberation of the Ukrainian Donbas is a step in that direction. This is an opportunity to go further to Kreminna and Severodonetsk. He said it was psychologically very important.

Serhiy Hayday, the head of the Luhansk regional military administration, told Saturday that Russian forces had offered to withdraw from the Lyman offensive but could not because Ukrainian forces were not relenting.

“Occupiers asked [their command] for possibility to retreat, and they have been refused. They have a couple of options. No, they actually have three options. Hayday said to try to break through or everyone will die.

“There are several thousand of them. Yes, about 5,000. There is no exact number yet. Five thousand is still a colossal grouping. There has never been such a large group in the encirclement before. All routes for the supply of ammunition or the retreat of the group are all completely blocked,” he added.

A video on Telegram showing a Ukrainian tank moving up a road with a sign in the middle of it was published by Yurii Mysiagin, the deputy head of the parliament’s committee on national security. CNN couldn’t verify the original source or the date.

Since early Friday morning, unconfirmed videos and photos have surfaced online of the Ukrainian flag being raised atop the Kherson city administration building and police headquarters, as well as jubilant locals in nearby villages celebrating liberation. Several videos appeared to show Ukrainians tearing down Russian billboards signs that read “Russia is Here Forever.”

The leader of the Chechen republic said in an angry statement that it was time for the Kremlin to use every weapon in its arsenal.

Kadyrov said on his Telegram channel that he wanted to take drastic measures, such as declaring martial law and using low-yield nuclear weapons. There isn’t need to make every decision with the Western American community in mind.

While Putin declared on Friday that Russians would always be Russians, there is concern that he could be planning to use a nuclear weapon.

The announcement was dismissed as illegal by the United States and many other countries, but the fear is the Kremlin might argue that attacks on those territories now constitute attacks on Russia.

The leader made only a passing reference to nuclear weapons, noting that the United States used them on the battlefield.

Energoatom Director-General Murashov Detention after Putin’s Decree to Take Over the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant

Also on Saturday, the director-general of Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was detained by a Russian patrol, according to the president of state nuclear company Energoatom.

The director-general was blindfolded and taken out of his car, so he couldn’t see, on his way to the plant. For the time being there is no information on his fate,” Energoatom’s Petro Kotin said in a statement.

The head of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog is expected to visit Kyiv this week to discuss the situation at the Zaporizhzhia facility after Putin signed a decree Wednesday declaring that Russia was taking over the six-reactor plant. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry called it a criminal act and said it considered Putin’s decree “null and void.” The nuclear operator said that it will continue to operate the plant.

Kotin called for Murashov’s release, and urged the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to “take all possible immediate actions to urgently free” him.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs “strongly” condemned Murashov’s “illegal detention,” calling it a “another manifestation of state terrorism from the side of Russia and a gross violation of international law.”

The ministry called for the UN, IAEA, and G7 to take decisive measures to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

The bodies of 22 civilians, including 10 children, were found after Russian shelling on a convoy of cars in the east of the country, the regional prosecutor’s office said Saturday.

The cars were shot by the Russian army when a group of people tried to flee, according to a Telegram post.

Vladimir Putin in the Emergency: The Russian Regime in the Last Eight Months of the Crimes in the Dominant Region of the Donbas

It was a sign that Putin felt a show of force was necessary, as much for his own audience at home as for the West.

In a candid article published Sunday, the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda said that Russian forces in the last few days of their occupation were beset by desertion, poor planning and delayed reserve units.

There is no chance of Russian forces collapsing and allowing the Ukrainians to take another huge swath of territory, according to American officials. But individual Russian units could break in the face of sustained Ukrainian pressure, allowing Kyiv’s army to continue retaking towns in the Donbas and potentially seize the city of Kherson, a major prize in the war.

“This is a Russian region,” Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, told reporters on Friday. It has been defined and fixed. There is no need for changes here.

Russia is pouring the new conscripts across the whole of the front line in an attempt to halt recent Ukrainian advances while rebuilding ground forces decimated during eight months of war. In September, military analysts had predicted that Russian men would deployment to front line areas through the fall with high numbers of casualties. Russian forces are attacking in the east, but on defense in the south.

When arrested in eastern Australia last week, the only thing that he wore was a red or white shirt, meaning he was either for Russia or Ukraine. The Ukrainian soldiers gave him a parka that was lying in the trench to keep him warm.

“He came out of the forest and went to our positions,” said Serhiy, one of the Ukrainian soldiers who had found Aleksandr, recounting the capture to a pair of reporters from The New York Times visiting their position near the front line.

The amount of Russian losses in these infantry advances is not known. The institute said the advances were hurting units that were well prepared for battle and well dug in defensive positions of Ukrainian troops. The Ukrainian military’s estimates of Russian casualties are seen to be inflated, but the relative increase in the reported numbers suggests a rising toll. More than 800 Russian solders had been wounded or killed in the previous 24 hours according to the Ukrainian military.

A wave of missiles, rockets and drones has struck dozens of locations across Ukraine since Monday, according to officials, targeting civilian infrastructure in several major cities, including Kyiv, located hundreds of miles from the front lines in the east and south.

Hours after the president announced that the military had reclaimed three villages in one of the regions that Russia had annexed, the strikes came.

IRAS in Kiev, the European Central Power Plant, and Zaporizhzhia, the Annexed Crimea: News of a “Croase of Crimea”

Governor Oleksandr Starukh wrote on his Telegram channel that many people were rescued from the multi-story buildings, including a 3-year-old girl who was taken to a hospital for treatment.

Rogov also said that Ukrainians “have concentrated significant number of militants in Zaporizhzhia direction” and that the risk of storming the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant “remains high”.

Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, plans to talk with Ukrainian officials about the Russian move. He will also discuss efforts to set up a secure protection zone around the facility, which has been damaged in the fighting and seen staff including its director abducted by Russian troops.

A day after the Kremlin held the door open for more land grabs, a group of leaders from over 40 countries are gathering in the Czech Republic to start a “European Political Community” that will aim to boost security and prosperity across the continent.

The Ukrainian government claimed it reclaimed 2,400 square kilometers of Kherson from Russian control as of last week. Authorities in Kyiv said Wednesday that it had liberated five more small, rural villages as the Ukrainian military pushes further southwest.

Russian military medics didn’t have enough supplies, and military hospitals full of wounded Russian soldiers, according to the deputy head of the Ukrainian regional government. Russian soldiers are being sent to the annexed peninsula of Crimea once they are stabilized.

As Ukrainian soldiers battled to capture it, it sustained a lot of damage. There was a man who gave only his first name who was in line for aid.

“The Russian city of Valuyki is under constant fire”, says a spokesman for the Defense Ministry in Russia’s State Duma

“The war is over, we want the pharmacy, shops and hospitals to work as they used to,” he said. “Now we don’t have anything yet. Everything is destroyed and pillaged, a complete disaster.”

In his nightly address, a defiant Zelenskyy switched to speaking Russian to tell the Moscow leadership that it has already lost the war that it launched Feb. 24.

STAVKY, Ukraine — Racing down a road with his men in pursuit of retreating Russian soldiers, a battalion commander came across an abandoned Russian armored vehicle, its engine still running. There was a rifle, a grenade, helmets, and belongings in the room. The men did not return.

“They dropped everything: personal care, helmets,” said the commander, who uses the code name Swat. They were panicking, but I believe it was a special unit. It was raining very hard, the road was bad and they drop everything and move.”

“Our Russian city of Valuyki… is under constant fire,” he said. “We learn about this from all sorts of folks, from governors, Telegram channels, our war correspondents. But no one else. The reports from the Ministry of Defense are the same. They say they destroyed 300 rockets, killed Nazis and so on. But people know. Our people are not stupid. But they don’t want to even tell part of the truth. This can cause a loss of credibility.

Stremousov has been critical of the decision-makers in Moscow and on the battlefield. He blamed incompetent commanders last week for the military setbacks in Kherson.

In a recent interview with Russian arch-propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, the head of the defense committee in Russia’s State Duma demanded that officials cease lying and level with the Russian public.

The ministry of defense was hiding information about cross-border strikes in Russian regions, according to Kartapolov.

Valuyki is located in Russia, near the border with Ukraine. Kyiv has generally adopted a neither-confirm-nor-deny stance when it comes to striking Russian targets across the border.

“There is no need to somehow cast a shadow over the entire Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation because of some, I do not say traitors, but incompetent commanders, who did not bother, and were not accountable, for the processes and gaps that exist today,” Stremousov said. “Indeed, many say that the Minister of Defense [Sergei Shoigu], who allowed this situation to happen, could, as an officer, shoot himself. But, you know, the word officer is an unfamiliar word for many.”

Kadyrov was a bit more open about blaming Russian commanders after the retreat from the Ukrainian city of Lyman.

Writing on Telegram, Kadyrov personally blamed Colonel-General Aleksandr Lapin, the commander of Russia’s Central Military District, for the debacle, accusing him of moving his headquarters away from his subordinates and failing to adequately provide for his troops.

“The Russian information space has significantly deviated from the narratives preferred by the Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) that things are generally under control,” ISW noted in its recent analysis.

One of the central features of Putinism is a fetish for World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War. The use of punishment battalions, sending soldiers accused of cowardice or wavering against German positions as cannon fodder were some of the brutal tactics used by the Red Army to fight Hitler.

Kadyrov – who recently announced that he had been promoted by Putin to the rank of colonel general – has been one of the most prominent voices arguing for the draconian methods of the past. He recently said in another Telegram post that, if he had his way, he would give the government extraordinary wartime powers in Russia.

The shock of Enerhodar, a village in the southwestern Ukraine border forced by the 1991 Russian-Suzanne border conflict

On the same day that the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to human rights activists in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, there was also a torrent of criticism towards Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin.

With the Kremlin distracted by its flagging war more than 1,500 miles away in Ukraine, Russia’s dominium over its old Soviet empire shows signs of unraveling. Moscow has lost its aura and its grip, creating a disorderly vacuum that previously obedient former Soviet satraps, as well as China, are moving to fill.

The result in just one village in the mountains of southwestern Kyrgyzstan was devastating: homes destroyed, a burned-out school, and a sickening stench from the rotting carcasses of 24,000 dead chickens.

All fell victim last month to the worst violence to hit the area since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union — a brief but bloody border conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, both members of a Russia-led military alliance dedicated to preserving peace but which did nothing to halt the mayhem.

Crews restored power and cellular connection in Enerhodar, the city near Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant that is currently under Russian control, a senior official said Sunday.

Water supply will be restored in the near future according to a telegram post from a pro-Russian leader.

The city is lacking electricity and heat, and is also in dire need of food, water and medicine. Before the war, the city had close to 300,000 residents.Ukrainian military and government officials are trying to reestablish a sense of normality.

The Russian Defense Ministry called the murders a terrorist attack in a statement cited by the state media outlets. The two men were from a former Soviet nation and had fired at the soldiers at a firing range.

Russia was poised to strike the city from new positions across the river, as was warned by the Ukrainian military. The main transit route for Russian supplies came to a stop early Friday after the major bridge connecting Kherson to the eastern bank was blown up.

After the first attack on a Crimean neighborhood of Zaporizhzhia, Russia, two days after Zelenskyy and a dog killed by a missile barrage

“We have already established the route of the truck,” he said, adding that it had been to Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, North Ossetia and Krasnodar — a region in southern Russia — among other places.

Recent fighting has focused on the regions just north of Crimea, including Zaporizhzhia. Zelenskyy expressed his displeasure in a Telegram post.

Stunned residents watched from behind police tape as emergency crews tried to reach the upper floors of a building that took a direct hit. There is a chasm at least 12 meters wide. In an adjacent apartment building, the missile barrage blew windows and doors out of their frames in a radius of hundreds of feet. At least 20 private homes and 50 apartment buildings were damaged, city council Secretary Anatoliy Kurtev said.

After hearing air raid sirens, the couple took refuge in the hallway of their apartment. Their possessions flew when the explosion shook the building. As the couple looked at the damage to their house, Lazunko cried.

About 3 kilometers (2 miles) away in another neighborhood ravaged by a missile, three volunteers dug a shallow grave for a German shepherd killed in the strike, the dog’s leg blown away by the blast.

The attack and response of Putin to angry war hawks on the Lyman bridge and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant

Russian President Putin has not responded sufficiently to angry war hawks because he did not form a committee to investigate the bridge explosion, according to an independent Russian political analyst. The attack and response have inspired the opposition while demoralizing the loyalists.

“Because once again, they see that when the authorities say that everything is going according to plan and we’re winning, that they’re lying, and it demoralizes them,” he said.

The bridge was opened by Putin in May of 2018, as a symbol of Moscow’s claims on the peninsula. Russia’s military operations in southern Ukraine rely on the bridge.

Crimea is a popular vacation resort for Russians. People trying to drive to the bridge and onto the Russian mainland on Sunday encountered hours-long traffic jams.

— In the devastated Ukrainian city of Lyman, which was recently recaptured after a months-long Russian occupation, Ukrainian national police said authorities have exhumed the first 20 bodies from a mass burial site. The graves of around 200 people are believed to be located in one location, and another contains the bodies of fallen Ukrainian soldiers. The civilians, including children, were buried in single graves, while members of the military were buried in a 40-meter long trench, according to police.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant lost its last external power source early Saturday and had to be reconnected to the grid by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The Strikes on Kiev and the City of Donetsk: Demonstration of the Kremlin-Induced Crisis in Ukraine

Michael Bociurkiw is a global affairs analyst. He is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former spokesperson for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He is a contributor to CNN. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.

Even amid irrepressible jubilation here in Ukraine in the aftermath of a massive explosion that hit the hugely strategic and symbolic Kerch Straight bridge over the weekend, fears of retaliation by the Kremlin were never far away.

The strikes in the Belgorod region next to Ukraine and the destruction of the municipal administration building in the city of Donetsk are powerful signals that the chaos unleashed by President Putin is spreading far beyond the front lines.

The strikes are close to the government quarter and can’t be overstated. It is a red line being crossed on the 229th day of the war.

As of midday local time, the area around my office in Odesa remained eerily quiet in between air raid sirens, with reports that three missiles and five kamikaze drones were shot down. Normally at this time of the day nearby restaurants would be packed with customers and chatter of upcoming weddings and parties.

Monday’s attacks also came just a few hours after Zaporizhzhia, a southeastern city close to the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, was hit by multiple strikes on apartment buildings, mostly while people slept. At least 17 people were killed and several dozens injured.

In a video filmed outside his office Monday, a defiant President Volodymyr Zelensky said it appeared many of the 100 or so missile strikes across Ukraine were aimed at the country’s energy infrastructure. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the capital has been damaged and some provinces are without power.

Other videos showed cars driving in the city center beeping horns as people on the sidewalks shouted “Glory to Ukraine!” In one, Ukrainian soldiers drove slowly past a crowd as people reached out to touch the soldiers through the open windows.

Many people in Ukrainian cities will be spending the entire day in bomb shelters at the request of officials, while businesses are urged to shift work online as much as possible.

Just as many regions of Ukraine were starting to roar back to life, and with countless asylum seekers returning home, the attacks risk causing another blow to business confidence.

The symbolic significance of the only bridge linking mainland Russia and Crimea cannot be overstated by Putin. The timing of the attack, and the fact that Marilyn Monroe sang Happy Birthday to him, can be seen as further evidence of the aging autocrat’s inability to face shame and humiliation.

The reaction among Ukrainians to the explosion was instantaneous: humorous memes lit up social media channels like a Christmas tree. People shared their jubilation with text messages.

The world could see the message. Putin doesn’t plan on being humiliated. He will not admit defeat. And he is quite prepared to inflict civilian carnage and indiscriminate terror in response to his string of battlefield reversals.

Putin was placed on thin ice by the criticism at home, which was an act of selfish desperation.

Moscow and the Kremlin: Where Putin wants to go next? The case of the attack on Monday night in Kyiv and the rest of the world

The Kremlin made a new overall commander of the invasion. But there is little sign that Gen. Sergey Surovikin can lead his forces back onto the front foot before the end of the year, given the pace and cost of the Ukrainian counter-offensives.

Washington and others need to use phone diplomacy to persuade China and India to resist the urge to use weapons that are even more deadly.

Experts suggest that the coming weeks are critical for both Europe and around the globe. “As ever, where Putin goes next depends on how the rest of the world is responding,” Giles said. “Russia’s attitude is shaped by the failure of Western countries to confront and deter it.”

Furthermore, high tech defense systems are needed to protect Kyiv and crucial energy infrastructure around the country. With winter just around the corner, it is important that heating systems are protected.

The time has also come for the West to further isolate Russia with trade and travel restrictions – but for that to have sufficient impact, Turkey and Gulf states, which receive many Russian tourists, need to be pressured to come on board.

The attacks wreaked havoc, taking away the semblance of a normal city life that city dwellers had been living in since the war in subways began.

But the targets on Monday also had little military value and, if anything, served to reflect Putin’s need to find new targets because of his inability to inflict defeats on Ukraine on the battlefield.

The bombing of power installations appeared to be an indication of the misery the Russians would cause as winter sets in, even as they retreated from Ukrainian troops using Western arms.

U.S. President Barack Biden and the Kiev Crisis: How Putin and the United States are dealing with civilians in Kiev and other conflicts?

The White House did not specify what kind of air systems would be sent after Biden spoke to the Ukrainian President.

John Kirby said that the US was in touch with the Ukrainian government almost every day, as he indicated Washington was looking favorably on their requests. “We do the best we can in subsequent packages to meet those needs,” he told CNN’s Kate Bolduan.

Kirby was also unable to say whether Putin was definitively shifting his strategy from a losing battlefield war to a campaign to pummel civilian morale and inflict devastating damage on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, though he suggested it was a trend developing in recent days and had already been in the works.

They had been planning for it for a long time. Kirby doesn’t think that the explosion on the bridge might have accelerated some of their planning.

An onslaught on civilians would be consistent with the resume of the new Russian general in charge of the war, Sergey Surovikin, who served in Syria and Chechnya. In both places, Russia indiscriminately bombarded civilian areas and razed built-up districts and infrastructure and is accused of committing serious human rights violations.

The rain of fire against Ukrainian civilians on Monday was also chilling, given that it occurred following Putin’s latest nuclear threats and days of debate over whether he might use a tactical nuclear weapon. If he does not, it seems unlikely – given his obliviousness to civilian pain – that any such decision would be motivated by a desire to spare innocents from such a horrific weapon. Kirby said that there was no indication of Russia or the US changing their nuclear posture.

But French President Emmanuel Macron underscored Western concerns that Monday’s rush-hour attacks in Ukraine could be the prelude to another pivot in the conflict.

“He was telegraphing about where he is going to go as we get into the winter. He is going to try to force the Ukrainian population to compromise, to give up territory, by going after this infrastructure,” Vindman said on CNN’s “New Day.”

In apparent revenge for the explosion on the bridge that led to the annexation of the peninsula, Zelensky said that 56 of the missiles and drones had been shot down by the Ukrainians.

“So imagine if we had modern equipment, we probably could raise the number of those drones and missiles downed and not kill innocent civilians or wound and injure Ukrainians,” Zhovkva said.

Any prolonged campaign by Putin against civilians would be aimed at breaking Ukrainian morale and possibly unleashing a new flood of refugees into Western Europe that might open divisions among NATO allies that are supporting Ukraine.

The lesson of this horrible war is that everything Putin has done to fracture a nation he doesn’t believe has the right to exist has only strengthened and unified it.

Olena Gnes, a mother of three who is documenting the war on YouTube, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper live from her basement in Ukraine on Monday that she was angry at the return of fear and violence to the lives of Ukrainians from a new round of Russian “terror.”

She said that this is just another reason to scare people in other countries, or to show to his own people that he is still a bloody tyrant.

“We do not feel desperate … we are more sure even than before that Ukraine will win and we need it as fast as possible because … only after we win in this war and only after Russia is defeated, we will have our peace back here.”

On Monday, state television not only reported on the suffering, but also flaunted it. It showed smoke and carnage, empty store shelves and a long-range forecast promising months of freezing temperatures in central Kyiv.

“We urge the residents of the Kherson region to remain calm and to not panic. Nobody is going to withdraw Russian troops from the Kherson region,” Stremousov said. “This is not an evacuation, this is an opportunity to save lives.”

In a video address, Putin’s administrator called for residents in districts surrounding the regional capital of Kherson to leave to make way for Ukrainian forces in the south.

The cities of Kherson, which Russia claimed to have annexed in violation of international law, were being targeted by dangerous airstrikes, claimed Saldo.

“We suggested that all residents of the Kherson region, if there is such a wish, to protect themselves from the consequences of missile strikes, should go to other regions … to take their children and leave.”

However, Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Kherson region’s military administration, said that the civilian transports were not an “evacuation.”

This week, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine told the international community just how much money his country currently needed to rebuild and keep its economy afloat: $57 billion. He gave that figure to the boards of governors of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Mr. Zelensky estimated that it would take 17 billion dollars to rebuild schools, hospitals, transport systems, and housing, with 2 billion going toward exporting to Europe and restoring Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

The pictures captured hundreds of trucks waiting to get into Russia by ferry after the bombing. The images captured by Maxar Technologies show a large queue of trucks at the port in Kerch as well as an airport that appears to be being used as a staging area.

The long lines for the ferry crossing had become more problematic due to the security checkpoints set up after the bridge explosion, according to a senior Russia analyst.

“Russia’s Road to War with Ukraine”: A Key Track in a Cold War Between Europe and the West, as Observed by Keir Giles

The war is going into a new phase, not for the first time. “This is now the third, fourth, possibly fifth different war that we’ve been observing,” said Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Programme.

Despite that the war favors Ukraine, American and Ukrainian officials say that the fighting will continue for months more. There are a number of variables that could make a difference in shifting the conflict trajectory: whether or not Europe can maintain unity this winter as energy prices rise, and if President Vladimir V. Putin is willing to escalate the fight.

It means that, as winter approaches, the stakes of the war have been raised once more. Giles said that Russia would like to keep it up. The successes of Ukrainians in recent weeks have been a direct message to the Kremlin. Giles said that they are able to do things that take them by surprise.

A suggestion built up in the West and in Russia that while Ukraine could defend its territory, it did not have the ability to seize it was disproved by these counter-offensives.

BLAHODATNE, Ukraine — Ukraine’s troops swept into the key southern city of Kherson on Friday, its military said, greeted by jubilant residents waving Ukrainian flags after a major Russian retreat.

The author of “Russia’s Road to War with Ukraine” thinks that the Russians are playing for the whistle to avoid a collapse in their frontline.

“If they can get to Christmas with the frontline looking roughly as it is, that’s a huge success for the Russians given how botched this has been since February.”

If a major blow in Donbas was to be landed, it would be a strong signal to the country and others, as temperatures plummet on the battlefield, and the influence of rising energy prices is felt around Europe.

“There are so many reasons why there is an incentive for Ukraine to get things done quickly,” Giles said. “The winter energy crisis in Europe, and energy infrastructure and power being destroyed in Ukraine itself, is always going to be a test of resilience for Ukraine and its Western backers.”

NATO leaders have vowed to stand behind Ukraine regardless of how long the war takes, but several European countries – particularly those that relied heavily on Russian energy – are staring down a crippling cost-of-living crisis which, without signs of Ukrainian progress on the battlefield, could endanger public support.

Ukraine’s national electricity company, Ukrenergo, says it has stabilized the power supply to Kyiv and central regions of Ukraine after much of the country’s electricity supply was disrupted by Russian missile attacks on Monday and Tuesday. The Ukrainian Prime Minister warned of the need to fix the damaged equipment, and asked Ukrainians to reduce their energy consumption during peak hours.

Western assessments suggest that Moscow may not have the ability to keep up with Russia’s aerial bombardment, and experts believe it is unlikely that the pattern will form again.

“We know – and Russian commanders on the ground know – that their supplies and munitions are running out,” Jeremy Fleming, a UK’s spy chief, said in a rare speech on Tuesday.

That conclusion was also reached by the ISW, which said in its daily update on the conflict Monday that the strikes “wasted some of Russia’s dwindling precision weapons against civilian targets, as opposed to militarily significant targets.”

Justin Bronk, a military expert with the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), agreed with that assessment, telling CNN that, “Ukrainian interception success rates against Russian cruise missiles have risen significantly since the start of the invasion in February.”

“The barrage of missile strikes is going to be an occasional feature reserved for shows of extreme outrage, because the Russians don’t have the stocks of precision munitions to maintain that kind of high-tempo missile assault into the future,” Puri said.

Some assistance may be on the way for Putin. An announcement by Alexander Lukashenko that the two countries will have a joint regional group of troops raised fears that there would be more military cooperation between the two countries. Some observers say that the recent threats of the Ukrainians could be a sign of things to come.

The reopening of a northern front would be another challenge for the country. It would provide Russia a new route into the Kharkiv oblast (region), which has been recaptured by Ukraine, should Putin prioritize an effort to reclaim that territory, he said.

Zelensky plans to drive home those gains by looking for more supplies in the short term. The leader has sought to highlight Ukraine’s success in intercepting Russian missiles, saying more than half of the missiles and drones launched at Ukraine in a second wave of strikes on Tuesday were brought down.

Ahead of a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday thatUkraine needed more systems to stop missile attacks.

“These air defense systems are making a difference because many of the incoming missiles [this week] were actually shot down by the Ukrainian air defense systems provided by NATO Allies,” he said.

The modern systems that arrived in Ukraine from Germany and the United States this week were badly needed by the country, said Bronk.

A Russian attack on Ukrainian civilians: The humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and the consequences for the security of the Russian border border region, as described by the defense ministry and the RIA Novosti

That’s not to say mobilized forces will be of no use. If used in support roles, like drivers or refuelers, they might ease the burden on the remaining parts of Russia’s exhausted professional army. They could fill out the cells along the line of contact, as well as cordon off some areas and checkpoint in the back. They are unlikely to become a fighting force. Already there are signs of discipline problems among mobilized soldiers in Russian garrisons.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said in October that two people shot at Russian troops preparing to deploy, killing eleven people and wounding fifteen before killing themselves.

The building that was used for the Mayor’s office was hit by a rocket. Plumes of smoke swirled around the building, which had rows of blown-out windows and a partially collapsed ceiling. Cars nearby were burned out. There were no immediate reports of casualties. Kyiv did not comment on the attack.

Zelenskyy accused Russia of including convicts “with long sentences for serious crimes” in its front-line troops in return for pay and amnesty — something Western intelligence officials have also asserted.

France is stepping-up military training for Ukraine in order to puncture the perception that it lags behind. Up to 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers will be embedded with military units in France for several weeks of combat training, a specialized training in logistics and other needs, and training on equipment given by France, the French defense minister said in an interview published in Le Parisien.

Similar schemes are a “pretext” for deporting Ukrainian citizens to Russian territory because they are in areas occupied by Russian citizens, according to the Institute for the Study of War.

It referenced statements made this week by Russian authorities that claimed that “several thousand” children from a southern region occupied by Moscow had been placed in rest homes and children’s camps amid the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The original remarks by Russia’s deputy prime minister, Marat Khusnullin, were reported by RIA Novosti on Friday.

Russian authorities have previously admitted to placing children from Russian-held areas of Ukraine who were orphans for adoption with Russian families in a potential violation of the international treaty on genocide prevention.

Some Ukrainian officials and residents say the civilian evacuation was a pretext for forced deportations. Others say it was about clearing space for newly mobilized Russian troops.

— A Russian commander wanted for his role in the downing of a Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine in 2014 has been deployed to the front, according to social media posts by pro-Kremlin commentators. Posts by Maksim Fomin said that Strelkov, also known as Ivan, has been given responsibility for a Russian front-line unit.

Girkin has been on an international wanted list over his alleged involvement in the downing of Kuala Lumpur-bound flight MH17, which killed 298 people. He remains the most high-profile suspect in a related murder trial in a Dutch court, with a verdict expected Nov. 17.

Recently, Girkin’s social media posts have lashed out at Moscow’s battlefield failures. Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency said Sunday it would offer a $100,000 reward to anyone who captures him.

The State of Ukraine: Detection and Response to the U.S. Invasion of Ukraine after the NATO Security Council Report on March 8

NATO will hold exercises in the coming days. NATO has warned Russia not to use nuclear weapons on Ukraine but says the “Steadfast Noon” drills are a routine, annual training activity.

Russian agents are suspected of having carried out an attack on a bridge in which a large explosion was set off by some people.

The UN General Assembly denounced Russia’s move to annex parts ofUkraine. Four countries voted along with Russia in favor of the Ukrainian resolution, but other countries abstained.

Past recaps can be found here. More in-depth stories can be found here. You can also subscribe to NPR’s State of Ukraine Podcast if you want to receive updates throughout the day.

Often forgotten in the context of war, the environmental costs of the invasion have received an unusual amount of attention since it began eight months ago. That’s in part due to an unprecedented amount of data coming out of the country in the form of social media reports, remote monitoring, and satellite imagery, says Doug Weir, research director of the Conflict and Environment Observatory, which has been monitoring the situation from the UK. The attention of the Ukrainian government is one reason why it is due. The Ukrainian Nature Conservancy and other organizations are still assessing the damage, but the government recently came up with a bill of $34 billion. It is not clear how Russia will be made to pay for its damaged ecosystems, but it is certain that a framework will be presented at the UN Climate Conference in Egypt next month.

Blown-up tanks and other vehicles leak oil and diesel. Fires aerosolize pollutants, propelling chemicals and particulate matter into the atmosphere, which then falls as a kind of toxic snow. Battles also spark forest fires, which chew through previously protected areas: 250,000 acres have burned in Ukraine so far, Vasyliuk says.

The water quality of the ground is not good at all. Nickola Denisov, deputy director of the Zo Environment Network in Ukraine, says that wind does a good job of blowing air pollution out of the area but that if chemicals get underground, they will stay there a long time. “It’s a much more stable environment,” says Denisov. It’s polluted once it’s polluted. And it may take a very, very long time—many years—for groundwater to get rid of pollution.”

“It is our duty to make sure that we are in the best interests of the people of the Russian peninsula,” said Vladimir Saldo in his first interview with the Zvezda channel

Saldo offered residents the option of relocating to cities “in any part of Russia,” and said the Russian government would provide housing vouchers to those who wished to move further from the fighting.

He stated that residents whose homes might be damaged from shelling would be compensated by the Russian government.

The situation in Kherson is very difficult, and he refused to rule out the “hard decisions,” as he spoke in his first interview after being appointed to lead Russia’s armed forces.

The goal of our operations will be to maximize the safety of the civilians and our soldiers. “That was our priority,” he said to the Zvezda channel, which is funded by Russia’s Defense Ministry.

Some regional officials — including the mayor of Moscow, Sergey Sobyanin — appeared to be taking pains to offer reassurances. “At present, no measures are being introduced to limit the normal rhythm of the city’s life,” Mr. Sobyanin wrote on his Telegram channel.

And despite the new power granted them by Mr. Putin, the regional governors of Kursk, Krasnodar and Voronezh said no entry or exit restrictions would be imposed.

There is a chance that many Russians see a warning message in the martial law imposed in Ukraine, the first time Moscow has imposed martial law since World War II.

“People are worried that they will soon close the borders, and the siloviki” — the strong men close to Mr. Putin in the Kremlin — “will do what they want,” Ms. Stanovaya said.

Russia, which has been a dominant military force in Syria since 2015 and helps maintain the government’s grip on power, still keeps a sizable presence there. Changes in the balance of power in one of the world’s most complicated conflict zones will likely lead Israel to rethink its stance toward the Ukraine conflict.

Events in Kherson and Kharkiv have shown that the Ukrainians possess tactical agility that seems alien to the Russian way of war, as well as far superior battlefield intelligence.

Grisly videos filmed by Ukrainian drones showing Russian infantry being struck by artillery in poorly prepared positions have partly supported those assertions, as has reporting in Russian news media of mobilized soldiers telling relatives about high casualty rates. The videos have not been verified by anyone and their location on the front line could not be determined.

The statement described a conversation between the supreme allied commander in Europe and a telephone conversation with an American general.

The Ukrainian advance was held back for several days, and that the soldiers were hit by fire on the right bank of the Dnieper.

According to the Institute for the Study of War, the increase in infantry in the east did not result in Russia gaining new ground.

“Russian forces would likely have had more success in such offensive operations if they had waited until enough mobilized personnel had arrived to amass a force large enough to overcome Ukrainian defenses,” the institute said in a statement on Thursday.

In the south, where Ukrainian troops are trying to get to the city of Kherson, the Ukrainian military reported that it has fired more than 160 times at Russian positions over the past 24 hours, but also that Russian return fire into Ukrainian positions.

With Russian and Ukrainian forces preparing for a battle in Kherson, the remaining residents of the city have been stocking up on food and fuel to survive.

In the event of Russian attacks on the infrastructure in the country, the city’s mayor says it would be prepared for worst-case scenarios, including a city without water or electricity.

The city’s mayor encouraged some residents to think about staying with family and friends outside of Kyiv if the city is left without electricity or water.

Why did Viktor Kherson leave Zaporizhia after he left the Soviet Union? “What I can’t do about it,” a friend told me

His ultimate goal for us is to die, to freeze, or to flee so that he can have it. That’s what the president of Russia is trying to achieve, according to Wladyslaw Kltchko.

Tkachuk said each district within the city will have about 100 heating centers to operate in case of emergencies in the winter. An ambulance crew will be on duty near the heating centers, as well as warm clothes, blankets and places to rest.

“I still can’t believe that I left there,” says Viktor, while pulling a red suitcase from the black car he rode to Zaporizhia, about 25 miles from occupied territory. “The madness.”

His home is on the other side of Kherson. His wife gave birth to their three daughters there. A neighbor told Viktor that the Russians broke into their house after they left.

At a shelter, a volunteer who asked to be called Artyom, helps care for Kherson evacuees as if they were his own family. Artyom asked that we not use his full name to protect his relatives in Kherson.

Artyom’s wife is not home : the Russians are worried about his wife and his baby, and he is afraid of his wife

His wife generally stays home as much as she can. She sells her vegetables and potatoes at the local market to make money.

Artyom thinks it’s not good. He is worried that the Russians will stop his wife. He worries that she’ll get sick. She is four months pregnant. He is worried about the baby.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/07/1134465380/kherson-ukraine-russia-battle-looms

Artyom and his wife live in Kyiv, Ukraine: a “collaborator’s’ perspective on a city built during the Ukrainian invasion of Crimea”

Some of them are called “collaborators” by the person who is currently living in Kyiv. He says there are people who can’t leave. Many of them are older. Others have few resources. He says their lives are intense at the moment.

The city has limited public interaction since the war started because of the local street markets. Local bakers and farmers have been selling their wares at the street markets in Kherson because most of the stores are closed.

“You can buy most things, from starting with medicine and finishing with meat,” says Natalyia Schevchenko, 30, who fled Kherson this summer. “But it’s terrible to observe. They sell medicine on the hood and cut meat on the side of the car.

A volunteer who is helping to evacuate people from Kherson and other occupied territories is still in touch with those in the city. She says her grandmother, who refused to leave, gives her regular updates.

Artyom and his wife talk whenever they can. They try to keep their conversations light, they worry that Russians are listening in.

It’s scary — but they agree it’s a good thing. They think it means that Artyom is going to be able to go home soon.

While state media in Russia said that Ukrainian shelling had damaged the power lines, Yaroslav Yanushevych, the exiled Ukrainian head of the Kherson regional military administration, blamed Russian troops.

The Russian forces have also placed mines around water towers in Beryslav, Mr. Yanushevych said, referring to a town less than 50 miles from Kherson city and just north of a critical dam near the front lines of the fighting.

Some 250,000 people lived in the city before the war. It is not possible to know how accurate the estimates of 30,000 to 60,000 people are.

When Russian forces stormed across the Antonivsky Bridge over the Dnipro River in March and into Kherson city, a major port and a former shipbuilding center, it marked their biggest success of the early days of the war. Mr. Putin hoped to use the wider Kherson region as a bridgehead for a drive farther west, to the port city of Odesa, but that effort failed.

The Russian withdrawal of the Antonivsky Bridge into the Kherson Region: A blow to Putin’s war in Ukraine, and the need for a strong militarization

Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence agency said it would guarantee the rights of any abandoned Russian soldiers who surrendered, under a program called “I Want to Live.”

“Your commanders ordered you to dress in civilian clothes and try to flee Kherson independently. The Ukrainian statement said that you wouldn’t succeed.

The Russian withdrawal came amid reports of heavy damage to the Antonivsky Bridge — the area’s only road crossing over the Dnipro. Satellite images released by Maxar Technologies appeared to show a section of the bridge was completely sheared off.

The Russian withdrawal was ordered on Wednesday during a choreographed meeting in Moscow between Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and General Sergey Surovikin, the commander of Russia’s forces in Ukraine, which was shown on Russian state media.

Hours earlier, the Kremlin had issued a statement saying that the withdrawal of its forces across the Dnipro River was complete, though residents reported that there were still Russian soldiers in the city, some wearing civilian clothes.

The Russian withdrawal is widely believed to be a blow to Putin’s war effort in Ukraine — a view underscored by the Russian leader’s continued silence on the pullback.

In September, Putin presided over a lavish Kremlin ceremony which he illegally annexed the broader Kherson region and three other Ukrainian territories into the Russian Federation.

Russia retains a legal hold over the territory after the withdrawal, according to Kremlin spokesman Peskov. “Here there can be no changes,” Peskov said Friday.

KYIV and MOSCOW — Ukrainian soldiers began entering Kherson on Friday after a Russian retreat from the strategic city, in a significant win for Ukraine.

Videos shared by Ukrainian government officials on social media showed scenes of civilians who had endured nearly nine months of occupation cheering the arrival of a contingent of Ukrainian troops.

Recapturing control of Kherson would also bolster the Ukrainian government’s argument that it should press on militarily while it has Russian forces on the run, and not return to the bargaining table, as some American officials have advocated.

The residents who had been under occupation were happy to meet the Ukrainian soldiers as they moved through the towns and villages.

U.S. troops and civilian clothing in Kherson city are dominated by Russian drones, according to Serhiy, a retiree

The commander of a Ukrainian drones unit said he had not seen any equipment or troops from Russia in his zone north of Kherson city.

The apparent final hours of the Russian occupation overnight Thursday to Friday featured several explosions and were chaotic and disorienting, according to residents of Kherson reached by telephone on Friday morning.

Serhiy, a retiree living in Kherson who asked that his last name not be published for security reasons, said in a series of text messages before Ukrainian soldiers swept in that conditions in the city had unraveled overnight.

“At night, a building burned in the very center, but it was not possible even to call the fire department,” he wrote. “There was no phone signal, no electricity, no heating and no water.”

“They will be plotting provocations, false-flag operations in the city,” he said. “There is a lot of work ahead on demining and clearing the city.” Residents of Kherson city with whom CNN has spoken in recent weeks confirmed that many Russian soldiers were using civilian clothing.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the city of Kherson on Monday to celebrate its liberation from eight months of Russian occupation.

The Dnieper River is not a “city of death”: a joint attack between Russian and Ukrainian forces on the east bank of Kherson

The statement states that no piece of military equipment or weaponry was left behind on the west bank. Russian servicemen are on the left bank of Dnieper.

There was no incoming fire from the east bank Friday, but Ukraine said that seven people died in a missile attack on the city of Mykolaiv.

According to the military, Russian troops have been loading boats that seem appropriate for crossing the river and attempting to escape.

Russian troops are close to the city, just a short distance away, after they retreated from Kherson to the east side of the Dnipro River. The two armies remain within artillery range of each other.

The video that was distributed on social media was filmed in Tyahinka and showed people welcoming the forces on the highway. 14 miles west of the hydroelectric dam is the village of Nova Kakhovka, which has two bridges over the Dnieper river.

Residents of the town of Bilozerka, on the western outskirts of Kherson city, raised a Ukrainian flag and ripped down Russian propaganda billboards on Friday, according to videos on social media geolocated by CNN.

The official warned residents of southernUkraine not to return to recently liberated territory due to the risk of mines, as well as saying that there was a danger of the city of Kherson turning into a “city of death” on the way out.

Kim said that there were a lot of mines in the liberated territories and settlements. You should not go there unless you have a reason. There are casualties.”

New damage on the Dnipro river in Nova Kakhovka, the capital of Kherson, Ukraine, as discovered by Maxar Technologies

“This is a subject of the Russian Federation,” Dmitry Peskov said during a regular briefing with journalists. “It has been legally fixed and defined. There can be no changes here.”

The streets of Kherson are now filled with residents wearing Ukrainian flags, singing and shouting in defiance of Russian plans to turn the region into a pro-Russian republic.

But Ukraine says it’s documented thousands of cases nationwide, and a United Nations report in September found evidence the Russians killed, tortured and raped Ukrainian civilians.

Surovikin said that the withdrawal would protect the lives of civilians and troops – who have faced a punishing Ukrainian counteroffensive that targeted Russian ammunition depots and command posts, hampering their supply lines.

Moving to the east bank will make it easier for Russia to replenish its troops and regain defense in depth. Any attempt by Ukrainian forces to cross the Dnipro would be costly to the point of prohibitive, as Russian forces are well dug in along a stretch of the river. trenches appeared on satellite imagery and civilians were removed from homes close to the river as pillbox guardhouses became a common sight.

On Friday, Zelensky called it a historic day for Ukraine. “We are returning the south of our country, we are returning Kherson,” Zelensky said.

Success in Kherson may also allow exhausted Ukrainian units some respite, as well as allow redirected focus on Donbas, where fierce fighting continues in both Luhansk and Donetsk.

In Kherson, where Russian forces destroyed critical infrastructure and left a huge number of mines behind, the Ukranian authorities will have a lot of work to do.

On Friday, Maxar Technologies satellite images and other photos showed at least seven bridges, four of them crossing the Dnipro, have been destroyed in the last 24 hours.

New damage has also appeared on a critical dam that spans the Dnipro in the Kherson region city of Nova Kakhovka, on the east bank of the river. Both sides have been accusing the other of trying to break the dam to cause extensive flooding and deprive the nuclear power plant of water to cool its reactor.

Retaking life in the liberated territories of Kherson: A message from the retaken areas of Mykolaivka on Friday

This time he appeared openly in front of the city’s main government building, in a military-style jacket and clothing, surrounded by heavily armed security. He waved to people as he spoke about the victory of the war.

He said stabilization measures would follow due to the threat of mines. “The occupiers left a lot of mines and explosives, in particular at vital facilities. He said that they would be clearing them.

Police, firefighters, and power engineers are following our defenders. Medicine, communications, social services are returning. … Life is returning,” he said.

“It’s too dangerous here right now to go back to your homes in the newly retaken areas of Kherson,” officials said on Friday.

The head of the military administration in the neighboring Mykolaiv region went to the small city of Snihurivka on Friday to discuss the restoration of life in the liberated territories.

Kim warned local residents to be careful despite the fact that the relevant services have begun removing mines in the liberated territories.

The First Day of Freedom in Kherson: A Day in the Life and Times of a Free Girl, a Soldiers’ Companion

As the crew filmed live in Kherson’s central square, some in the crowd of locals sang the national anthem while others shouted “Slava Ukrayini!” – glory to Ukraine, a patriotic greeting.

Ukrainian flags have been being erected on the top of the buildings in the square. Soldiers driving through are greeted with cheers and asked to sign autographs on flags.

“We were terrified by [the] Russian army, we were terrified by soldiers that can come any moment in our house, in our home – just open the door, like they are living here, and steal, kidnap, torture,” Olga said.

Everyone is celebrating in the square. People are wearing the Ukrainian flag, they’re hugging the soldiers, they’ve come out to see what it’s like to have freedom,” Robertson said.

After eight months under Russian occupation, Katerina said the liberation was the best day of her life. “Our town is free, my street is free,” she told CNN.

Speaking Saturday on the next steps for the Ukrainian military, CNN military analyst Cedric Leighton said: “This is going to be a major urban operation. What you are going to see is a methodical operation to clear buildings of potential booby traps and mines.

For much of the journey through smaller towns and settlements, our team of CNN journalists was forced to drive through diversions and fields: bridges over canals were blown up, and roads were full of craters and littered with anti-tank mines.

The fate of the Dnipro River occupied by the Russians left to the citizens of Kherson (Russia’s until November 11)

Trenches and checkpoints were empty, quickly abandoned by Russians who on Friday announced they had withdrawn from the west bank of the Dnipro River in the strategic southern region of Kherson, leaving the regional capital of the same name and surrounding areas to the Ukrainians.

The outskirts of the city, which had been occupied by Russian forces since March 3, were deserted, with no military presence except for a Ukrainian checkpoint around 5 miles outside of the city center, where half a dozen soldiers waved CNN’s crew in.

There are billboards that used to read, “Ukraine is Russian forever”, sprayed with a message that reads: “Ukraine was Russia’s until November 11.”

The city’s residents have no water, no internet connection and little power. The mood was joyful as the CNN crew entered on Saturday.

The military presence is still limited, but huge cheers erupt from crowds on the street every time a truck full of soldiers drives past, with Ukrainian soldiers being offered soup, bread, flowers, hugs and kisses by elated passersby.

An old man and a woman hugging a young soldier with their hands on his shoulder as CNN stopped to regroup.

With the occupiers gone, people want to know what they have been through, how thankful they are, and how much help they have received.

Violations of the Russian Revolution in Kherson, Ukraine: a frustrated city with no water supply, electricity, water, food, or food supplies

The town doesn’t have a water supply. There is a shortage of medicines, there is a shortage of bread, which is not produced because of the lack of electricity. There are also problems with food supplies,” Roman Golovnya, adviser to the mayor of Kherson, said in a TV broadcast Saturday.

But life remains far from normal, with authorities warning residents to be wary of explosives littering the city, and Russian forces still nearby – just across the strategically important Dnipro River.

“Kherson is now a front line city,” he said. “Last night and in the early hours of this morning you could hear outgoing fire towards the Russian forces.”

On Saturday, Ukraine’s National Police warned “the main threat at the moment is mass mining,” with a police representative injured while demining one of the city’s administrative buildings.

Almost 2,000 “explosive items,” such as mines, trip wires, and unexploded ammunition, have already been removed from the Kherson region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned during his nightly address Saturday. He urged Kherson residents “to be careful and not try to independently check any buildings and objects left by the occupiers.”

There are bomb disposal experts working in Kherson, as well as the police and defense forces.

The city of Kherson has no heating at night and it is getting more difficult to find a place to live. Since they have the freedom to move around, Ukrainian authorities said that those who don’t like living in Kherson can move elsewhere in the country.

U.S. troops in the Kherson region of the Dnipro River: A hero’s welcome and the role of a hero

Satellite images from Maxar Technologies obtained by CNN on Friday showed water flowing out of three sluice gates at the dam, where a major hydroelectric project is situated.

The AFU General Staff informed the public on Sunday that Russian troops were focusing their efforts in the Kherson region on creating defensive lines on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River.

According to the video given to NPR, an old lady greeted him with a bouquet of flowers and draped her arms around his shoulders as he cried.

A villager wearing a black watch cap addressed the Colonel and soldiers with him: Kostenko’s brother, Denys and their cousin, Andriy.

Kostenko then walked into the courtyard of the one-story house where he had grown up and where Russian troops had lived since March. He passed a vulgar sign they had left painted on a wall and then stepped inside.

The windows were broken according to a text message from Kostenko. “Almost all the furniture and things were stolen,” including his body armor and medals. All that remained was a bed, some old wardrobes and a grenade the Russians had left behind.

“We pretty much denied those troops their supply chains,” says Stanislav Volovyk, a Ukrainian drone operator who helps guide the fire of howitzers. We blew up the bridges. We got their supply routes under fire control.

Various factors led to Ukraine’s routing of the Russians in this part of Kherson, but soldiers say the HIMARS had a big impact because they provided a range and level of accuracy the Ukrainians had never had before.

A reconnaissance soldier from Kherson who goes by the battle nickname Fox said he helped target a HIMAR that flew 24 miles before killing 20 Russian soldiers hiding in a bunker — a direct hit.

The port of Kherson was the location where Fox worked before the war. He joined the army on the first day after fleeing and became part of a team that was looking for traitors. Last weekend, he returned to his neighborhood to a hero’s welcome. His neighbors had no idea he’d become a soldier.

“They were completely surprised,” said Fox, who arrived in full battle gear. “I didn’t tell them I had joined the army because it could’ve caused them problems as they were in Russian-occupied territory.”

Fox, who has been shuttling food into Kherson city over the weekend, said his homecoming filled him with joy: “I don’t remember such a happy moment, such a light moment, in my life as today.”

Fox pointed out that before they left, the Russians sabotaged the city’s water, electrical and mobile communications systems — the latter is in the process of being restored, according to the local military administration.

And although the Russians retreated across the Dnieper River to avoid annihilation, they could dig in and continue the fight within easy artillery range of the city.

Vladimir Zelensky, the new city of Kherson, Ukraine, as revealed by Ukrainian media during Ukraine’s national anthem on Sunday night

As the blue-and-gold Ukrainian flag fluttered on a breezy day, Zelenskyy, his entourage, and hundreds of Kherson residents stood at attention as Ukraine’s national anthem played.

In his televised address on Sunday night, Zelenskyy said Ukrainian investigators have already documented more than 400 cases of suspected war crimes by the Russian forces during their occupation of Kherson.

Because the Russians took Kherson without a fight at the beginning of the war, most of the city’s buildings remain intact, unlike other urban areas that have been reduced to ruins.

In contrast to Zelenskyy, Russian President Vladimir Putin has not spoken publicly about Kherson since the Russia troops abandoned the city without a fight.

The Dnipro has become the new front line in southern Ukraine, and officials there warned of continued danger from fighting in regions that have already endured months of Russian occupation.

Through the afternoon, artillery fire picked up in a southern district of the city near the destroyed Antonivsky Bridge over the Dnipro, stoking fears that the Russian Army would retaliate for the loss of the city with a bombardment from its new positions on the eastern bank.

There were puffs of smoke after mortar shells hit near the bridge. Near the riverfront, incoming rounds rang out with thunderous, metallic booms. It wasn’t possible to see what had been hit.

The deaths underscored the threats still remaining on the ground, even as Mr. Zelensky made a surprise visit to Kherson, a tangible sign of Ukraine’s soaring morale.

Mr. Zelensky spoke in the main square of the city on Monday, as hundreds of people celebrated his election victory.

The Ukrainian government is setting up evacuation routes to the cities of Mykolaiv and Kryvyi Rih, said Iryna Vereshchuk, a Ukrainian deputy prime minister. “We will not have time to restore power supplies enough to heat homes where children, the sick and people with reduced mobility live,” she said. It won’t be a mass evacuation. It will cover those who are sick and the elderly as well as those without a family to watch them.

“Occupants rob local people and exchange stuff for samogon,” or homemade vodka, said one resident, Tatiana, who communicated via a secure messaging app from Oleshky, a town across the river from Kherson City. “Then they get drunk and even more aggressive. We are afraid here. She asked that her surname be withheld for security.

“Russians roam around, identify the empty houses and settle there,” Ivan, 45, wrote in a text message. He asked that his name not be used because of concerns for his safety in Skadovsk. “We try to connect with the owners and to arrange for someone local to stay in their place. That it is not abandoned and Russians don’t take it.

The U.S. Embassy to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield and the Russia-Ukraine War: Summary of the G-20 Summit in Indonesia

Russia-Ukraine war is a big topic at the G-20 summit in Indonesia. On Monday, the president talked with the Chinese leader about a number of issues. Biden is due to meet British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield visited Kyiv, Nov. 8, to talk about world hunger and press for renewal of the grain deal, due to expire Nov. 19. That followed a Ukraine trip the week before by the top U.S. diplomat on European and Eurasian affairs, Assistant Secretary of State Karen Donfried.

American basketball star Brittney Griner was moved to a Russian penal colony to begin serving out her nine-year sentence on drug smuggling charges Nov. 9.

The war in Ukraine was a topic for the U.N. climate conference. The war has caused ecocide and Ukraine used the summit to talk about it.