The Dnipro withdrawal and the invasion of Ukraine by Russia during the second-largest economy in the world: the case of Donetsk and Luhansk

Their withdrawal east across the Dnipro cedes large swathes of land that Russia has occupied since the early days of the war, and that Putin had formally declared as Russian territory just five weeks ago.

There were important links in the front line of Russian ground communications and logistics. Located 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, it is in the Donetsk region near the border with Luhansk region, both of which Russia annexed Friday after a local “referendum” was held at gunpoint.

Giles believes that Russia could use the war to force governments to remove their support forUkraine, not just for people of Ukraine but around Europe as well.

Ukraine laid the groundwork for its victory in Kherson back in the summer, with relentless long-distance attacks on Russian supply depots, railway hubs and bridges. It is using the same tactic now in Luhansk.

Ramzan Kadyrov blamed the retreat on a general who was covered up for by higher-up leaders. He called for more drastic measures to be made.

Meanwhile, on the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula, the governor of the city of Sevastopol announced an emergency situation at an airfield there. Explosions and huge billows of smoke could be seen from a distance by beachgoers in the Russian-held resort. Authorities said a plane rolled off the runway at the Belbek airfield and ammunition that was reportedly on board caught fire.

Russian bombardments have gone up in the last few days, as Moscow ordered a mass mobilize at home and moved quickly with its latest annexation. Russian men have fled the country because of the unpopularity of the Russian call-up.

The president of Ukraine and his military vowed to keep fighting to liberate the regions that were claimed to have been annexed by Russia.

Russian forces seize the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant director general in the Kharkiv district of Kyiv

24 civilians, including a child, were killed this week in an attack on a convoy that was trying to flee the district, said the governor of the Kharkiv region. He called it “rutty that cannot be justified” 13 children and a pregnant woman were among the dead, he said.

photographs of the attacked convoy were posted by the Security Service of Ukraine. At least one truck appeared to have been blown up, with burned corpses in what remained of its truck bed. The vehicle in front of the convoy was on fire. There were corpses laying on the side of the road or still inside vehicles which were covered with bullet holes.

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.

Russian forces seized the director general of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant on Friday, according to the Ukrainian state nuclear company, in an effort to gain control of the newly annexed territory.

Russia did not publicly comment on the report. The International Atomic Energy Agency said Russia told it that “the director-general of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was temporarily detained to answer questions.”

On Sunday, Vladimir Leontie, a Russian official in Nova Kakhovka, claimed on Russian state TV that the hydroelectric power plant had been damaged by shelling by the Ukrainian armed forces, and repairs might take at least a year.

There are billboards around the city that used to read “Ukraine is Russian forever” and have since been painted over with the message “Ukraine was Russia’s until November 11.”

The enigmatic case of Zaporizhzhia: annexed by Russia and the “European Political Community”

The military and economic aid tied to the war in Ukraine has gotten more than $11 billion over the last year, after President Joe Biden signed a bill Friday.

Hours before the strikes came, the country’s president announced that the military had regained control of three more villages in one of the regions annexed by Russia.

A 3-year-old child was taken to a hospital after being rescued from multi-storey buildings, the governor wrote on his Telegram channel.

Zaporizhzhia is one of four regions that Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed in violation of international laws on Wednesday, and is home to a nuclear plant that is under Russian occupation. The city of the same name is controlled by the Ukrainians.

The director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency will speak withUkrainian officials regarding the Russian move. He will explain how a secure protection zone has been set up around the facility which has been damaged and has staff kidnapped by Russian troops.

Meanwhile, leaders from more than 40 countries are meeting in Prague on Thursday to launch a “European Political Community” aimed at boosting security and prosperity across the continent, a day after the Kremlin held the door open for further land grabs in Ukraine.

What has changed in Crimea? The Kremlin explains the situation in Lyman’s annexed region, Crimea, Ukraine

This is a Russian region and the spokesman of the Kremlin told reporters on Friday. It has been defined and fixed. There can’t be changes here.

The precise borders of the areas Moscow is claiming remain unclear, but Putin has vowed to defend Russia’s territory — including the annexed regions — with any means at his military’s disposal, including nuclear weapons.

Just weeks ago Kherson region was annexed, illegally incorporated into the Russian Federation. Now about 10,000 square kilometers of land are back in Ukrainian hands, and Ukraine’s accurate Western-supplied artillery is within range of Crimea.

Russian military medics lack supplies and their hospitals are full of wounded soldiers, according to the deputy head of the Ukrainian regional government. Once they are stabilized, Russian soldiers are being sent to Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Russian troops retreated quickly and left behind the bodies of their dead colleagues in the city of Lyman. The people were laying down on the side of the road.

Lyman sustained heavy damage both during the occupation and as Ukrainian soldiers fought to retake it. Mykola, a 71-year-old man who gave only his first name, was among about 100 residents who lined up for aid on Wednesday.

The Crimes of February 1: Russia will not be tolerated in Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian President and Prime Minister Likudorov

“We want the war to come to an end, the pharmacy and shops and hospitals to start working as they used to,” he said. “Now we don’t have anything yet. Everything is destroyed and pillaged, a complete disaster.”

Zelenskyy told Moscow’s leadership that it has already lost the war that it launched in February.

The assault damaged civilian infrastructure in cities all across Ukraine, killing multiple people and knocking out power in pockets of the country. They were “an indication of the nature of the threat from Russia,” Giles said. The Russian goal has been to destroy the country rather than to possess it.

“This morning, a massive high-precision strike was conducted on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, military command, and communications,” said Putin. In the event that the attacks on Russian territories continue, our response will be proportional.

Power plants and water heating facilities were targeted in 11 of the 25 regions, according to President Zelenskyy.

“It’s a tough morning when you’re dealing with terrorists,” said Zelenskyy in the video, which recalled the selfie he took the night Russia invaded in February. “They’re choosing targets to harm as many people as possible.”

Explosions hit Kyiv and other cities: 81-year-old Viktor Shevchenko in Dnipro, Ukraine

In Kyiv, Ukraine Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko says that at least two museums and the National Philharmonic concert halls sustained heavy damage. According to the National Railway of Ukranian, trains were delayed during the morning rush hour because of a nearby strike.

Explosions rocked civilian areas of Dnipro, a major southern city. There is a bus stop located between high rise apartment buildings. A missile blew out the windows in the nearby apartments when it hit a bus on its morning route to pick up commuters.

“This happened at rush hour, as lots of public transport was operating in the city,” said Ihor Makovtsev, the head of the department of transport for the Dnipro city council, as he stood by the wreckage. The bus driver and four passengers were hospitalized with serious injuries.

It is hard for me to understand how they can call their work “aerial work” since all our transportation is only for civilian purposes.

81-year-old Viktor Shevchenko looked out from what once were the windows of his first floor balcony, just next to the bus stop. The ground was covered with shattered glass. He said he went to his kitchen to make breakfast after he had been watering the plants on his balcony.

“The explosion blew open all of my cabinets, and nearly knocked me to the ground,” he said. “Only five minutes before, and I would have been on the balcony, full of glass.”

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/10/1127794708/explosions-hit-kyiv-and-other-cities

The Russian Embassy in the Kherson Region: War is on the verge of a new phase, and it is important for Russia to keep it up

“We warned Zelenskyy that Russia hadn’t really started yet,” wrote Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a loyalist to Putin who repeatedly has attacked Russia’s Defense Ministry for incompetence in carrying out the military campaign.

Saldo said local Russian leadership had “decided to organize the possibility of Kherson families traveling to other regions of the Russian Federation.”

Russia claimed to have annexed four Ukrainian provinces in violation of international law, and Saldo said cities were being hit by dangerous airstrikes.

“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.”

Stremousov has been openly critical of the war’s decision-makers in Moscow and on the battlefield. He blamed incompetent commanders for the military setbacks in Kherson.

The war is on the verge of a new phase. “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.

Experts say the next weeks of the war will be important, as both sides seek to strike another blow, and that this potential spike in intensity looms over Ukraine as each side tries to strike another blow.

It means that, as winter approaches, the stakes of the war have been raised once more. Giles said that there is no doubt Russia wants to keep it up. The Russian government has been sent a clear message by the successes of recent weeks. Giles said that they are capable of doing things that take us by surprise.

There was a suggestion thatUkraine didn’t have the ability to seize ground in this war, but these counter-offensives have changed that.

The Russians are hoping to avoid a collapse in their frontline before the winter sets in, according to a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

It will be enormous success for the Russians if they can make Christmas with their frontline looking exactly as it is.

It would be a powerful signal if a major blow to the rebels occurred, and it would be eager to improve after the cold spell, as rising energy prices are felt around Europe.

There are a lot of reasons why there is an incentive for Ukraine to do things quickly. It is a test of resilience for the Western backers of Ukraine when the winter energy crisis in Europe and power being lost in the country is used as a test.

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 asked people to reduce their energy usage during peak hours in order to fix damaged equipment.

Experts believe it remains unlikely that Russia’s aerial bombardment will form a recurrent pattern; while estimating the military reserves of either army is a murky endeavor, Western assessments suggest Moscow may not have the capacity to keep it up.

Jeremy Fleming, UK’s spy chief, said in a speech that Russian commanders on the ground know that their supplies are running out.

The ISW noted that the limited supply of precision weapons used by Russia in this role may deprive Putin of options to disrupt ongoing Ukrainian counter-offensives.

Exactly how much weaponry and manpower each side has left in reserve will be crucial to determining how the momentum will shift in the coming weeks. Ukraine said it intercepted 18 cruise missiles on Tuesday and dozens more on Monday, but it is urging its Western allies for more equipment to repel any future attacks.

“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.

The impact of such an intervention in terms of pure manpower would be limited; Belarus has around 45,000 active duty troops, which would not significantly bolster Russia’s reserves. But it would threaten another assault on Ukraine’s northern flank below the Belarusian border.

Giles said that the reopening of a northern front would be a new challenge for Ukraine. It would be beneficial for Russia to get a new route into the Kharkiv oblast, which has been regained by the Ukrainians.

By flipping the narrative of the conflict over the past two months, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has achieved one of his own key objectives: showing Ukraine’s Western allies that their military aid can help Kyiv win the war.

Ahead of a meeting of NATO defense ministers, the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters thatUkraine needed more systems to stop missile attacks.

This week, many of the incoming missiles were shot down by the Ukrainian air defense systems provided by NATO Allies, and that is making a difference.

The IRIS-T arrived from Germany and the NASAMS from the United States, which was a badly needed modern system.

The Battle of Kherson: What Putin Decided During the October 11 U.S.-Russian Battle and What It Means for Europe

The coming weeks are therefore crucial both on the battlefield, as well as in Europe and around the globe, experts suggest. “As ever, where Putin goes next depends on how the rest of the world is responding,” Giles said. The failure of western countries to deter and confront Russia has shaped the country’s attitude.

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.

Saldo gave residents the option of moving to cities in any part of Russia, and the Russian government would provide housing vouchers for those wishing to move further from the fighting.

“We will not surrender the city, and we will fight to the end,” he said, adding that residents whose homes might be damaged from shelling could receive compensation from the Russian government.

Earlier in October, Ukrainian forces in the Kherson region pushed the Russian line back by 20 miles, according to the President’s office and Deep State, an independent monitoring group.

General Sergei Zurkin admitted in his first interview that the situation in Kherson was difficult, but wouldn’t rule out the hardest decisions.

Since taking over, Russia’s priority has been saving lives, not civilians, said the man who oversaw the bombardment of Ukrainian cities.

We will work to maximize the safety of civilians and our soldiers. That is our priority,” Surovikin said to the Zvezda channel, a state media outlet funded by Russia’s Defense Ministry.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, suggested similar schemes are a “pretext for deporting Ukrainian citizens to Russian territory as they populate occupied areas with Russian citizens.”

“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 is what it is.

His house is outside of Kherson. He and his wife Nadiya raised their three daughters there. Viktor says a neighbor said the Russians broke into their house after they left.

Kherson’s family isn’t fine: He’s afraid of his wife, his wife is sick, and he’s worried about the baby

At a Zaporizhzhia shelter, a volunteer who asks that he be called by his middle name, 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.

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

But Artyom says it’s not fine. He counts his fingers as he lists off his various fears: He worries that the Russians will stop his wife. He worries that she’ll get sick. She’s four months’ pregnant. He worries about the baby.

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

Kherson, a city where Jews, Jews and Russians live in — some people who just can’t leave — and how they interact

Holovnya, who is living in Kyiv, calls some of them collaborators. And he says some are people who just can’t leave. There are many older people. Others have few resources. Their lives right now are busy, he says.

What little public interaction there is now in the city revolves mostly around the local street markets that popped up since the war began. Most of the stores in Kherson are either closed or have empty shelves, so local farmers and bakers have been selling and trading items at the street markets.

“From the very beginning, you can buy everything from medicine to meat, from finishing with meat,” says Schevchenko, 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.

The people in the city are still in contact with Schevchenko, even though he is volunteering to evacuate them from Kherson. She says her grandmother, who refused to leave, gives her regular updates.

Artyom and his wife talk whenever they can get a decent connection. They generally try to keep their conversations light; they worry that Russians are listening in.

The Loss of Kherson in the First Three Months of World War II. The State Office in Beryslav, Macedonian, During the December 11-29 Rebellion

Everyone we have spoken to is aware that there are tougher days to come: that the Russians across the river could shell them here. It’s not clear if all the Russian troops have left Kherson. Behind this euphoria, there’s still that uncertainty.

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. Ukrainian activists estimate that 30,000 to 60,000 people remain, but it is impossible to know how accurate such guesses are.

The loss of Kherson would be Russia’s third major setback of the war, following retreats from Kyiv, the capital, last spring, and from the Kharkiv region in the northeast in September. After invading in February, Kherson was the only provincial capital Russia had captured so far, and it was a major part of Russia’s effort to control the southern coastline along the Black Sea.

Russian forces retreated from the east bank of the Dnipro River to comply with international rules after annexing the Kherson region in September.

The agency also urged Russian soldiers abandoned by their military leadership and still in Kherson to surrender — offering to guarantee their rights would be protected under a program called “I Want to Live.”

Your commanders ordered you to dress in civilian clothes to flee Kherson. A statement from the Ukrainian government said you won’t succeed.

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.

Images and video on social media Friday also showed that the Antonivskyi Bridge, the main conduit over the Dnipro in the Kherson region, had been destroyed.

Surovikin and Shoigu: Asked Questions for the Russian Army in Kiev during a High-Energy Decline of Kherson

Earlier this week, the commander of Russia’s forces in Ukraine, Gen. Sergei Surovikin, proposed plans to withdraw from Kherson during a report to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on national television.

In an interview on Thursday, the Ukrainian Defense Minister said it would take a minimum of a week for Russian forces to leave the city.

Even as its soldiers fled, the Kremlin said that it still considered Kherson — which President Putin illegally annexed in September — to be a part of Russia.

Russia still however retains control of about 60% of the Kherson region, south and east of the Dnipro, including the coastline along the Sea of Azov. So long as Moscow’s troops control and fortify the Dnipro’s east bank, Ukrainian forces will struggle to damage or disrupt the canal that carries fresh water to Crimea.

Ukraine’s military said it would proceed cautiously through Kherson region, and warned Russian troops were mining roads and destroying critical infrastructure as they retreated from the region.

It is believed that the Ukrainian government should keep fighting even though Russian forces are on the run, as it has argued that they should not return to the bargaining table.

The videos shared by the Ukrainian government showed civilians cheering the arrival of a group of Ukrainian troops, who had been in occupied territories.

The commander of the Ukrainian drones unit said he had not seen any Russian troops in his zone north of Kherson city.

He stated that the Russians left all the villages. The villages that we looked at with our drones did not see a single car. We don’t see how they are leaving. They retreat quietly, at night.”

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, who asked that his last name not be published because he is a retiree living in Kherson, said in a series of text messages before Ukrainian soldiers swept in that the 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. No phone signal, electricity, heating or water was present.

Is Mykolaiv a city of death? The Ukrainian ministry of environment and mines warns against leaving Kherson early in the morning

While there was no Russian military presence in the city on Friday, four people saw some Russian soldiers dressed in civilian clothing moving around the city.

It said that the Ukrainians had been held back for several days, and that the military equipment of the Ukrainians on the right bank of the Dnieper was being hit by fire.

The Russian military units went to the left bank of the Dnieper River in the Kherson direction. [Moscow time] this morning,” the ministry said on its official Telegram channel, using the Russian spelling for the river.

Ukraine has not reported any incoming fire from the east bank Friday but said a missile attack on the city of Mykolaiv, close to the border with Kherson, killed seven people early Friday.

The Russian military had been loading into boats that appear to be good for crossing the river and trying to escape, according to the southern operational command of the Ukrainian military.

A video circulating on social media on Friday, geolocated and authenticated by CNN, showed Ukrainian forces being greeted by residents on the main highway in Tyahinka. The village is just 14 miles (20 km) west of the hydroelectric dam and bridges that stretch across the Dnieper river at Nova Kakhovka.

The city of Kherson could be turned into a “city of death” if Russia’s troops were to retreat, and an official in southern Ukrainian warned Friday that returning to recently liberated territory was risky, due to the threat of mines.

There are mines in the liberated territories and settlements according to Vitaliy Kim, head of Mykolaiv region military administration. Don’t go there for the sake of it. There are casualties.

The fate of Kherson and the efforts of the Ukranian government to stop Russia from withdrawing from the Ukrainian army – Peskov’s legacy

“This is a subject of the Russian Federation,” Dmitry Peskov said during a regular briefing with journalists. It has been defined and fixed. There can’t be any changes here.

The residents of Kherson have faced curfews, shortages of goods, partisan warfare, and an intense campaign to force them to become Russian citizens, all in the name of trying to appease Moscow.

The depth of their suffering has yet to come into focus. For months, residents have told stories of their loved ones being taken, children illegally deported, and tortured and killed. When Russian have pulled out elsewhere in Ukraine, evidence of human rights abuses has eventually surfaced.

Videos shared on social media by Zelenskyy and other officials and citizens showed crowds in the street celebrating and chanting “ZSU! ZSU!” — the Ukrainian initials for the country’s armed forces.

The recapture of the key southern city marked a big loss for Russia, just six weeks after Putin illegally declared the Kherson region and three other territories to be included into the Russian Federation.

The initial announcement drew skepticism from Ukraine’s government, which previously voiced concern that a troop withdrawal there could be a Kremlin ploy to lure Ukrainian forces into the city.

The Russian pullout is seen by many as a blow to Putin’s war effort in Ukraine, because of the Russian leader’s continued silence on it.

The withdrawal would protect the lives of civilians and troops who have faced a punishing Ukrainian counter offensive that targeted Russian armor and command posts, limiting their supply lines.

The success of Kherson might allow exhausted Ukrainian units some respite, as well as allow a focus on fighting in Luhansk and the rest of the Donbas.

Russian forces left a huge number of mines behind in Kherson and the Ukranian authorities have a big task ahead of them.

Maxar Technologies satellite images and other photos show at least seven bridges, four of them crossing the Dnipro, 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. The two sides have been accusing each other of trying to destroy the dam so that it could lead to flooding on the east bank and deprive the nuclear power plant of water to cool its reactor.

The Ukrainians posses superior battlefield intelligence as well as tactical agility that seems alien to the Russian way of war.

Zelensky said that Friday was “a historic day” for Ukraine after Russia’s announcement of its withdrawal from the Kherson region.

Zelensky expressed his gratitude to the military units involved in the operation — “absolutely everyone, from privates to generals, the Armed Forces, intelligence, the Security Service of Ukraine, the National Guard — all those who brought this day closer for Kherson region.”

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 they would be clearing them.

Our defenders are followed by police and other people. Social services are returning. … Life is returning,” he said.

CNN’s Best Day in Kherson: Clean streets, free outskirts, euphoric greetings, and the best day of her life

The displaced have been warned by officials to hold off on returning to their homes in the newly retaken areas of Kherson.

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

“Despite the fact that the relevant services have already started (removing mines in) the liberated territories, I warn local residents to be careful,” Kim added.

Locals are trying to get the Ukrainian flags up on the top of the buildings. Soldiers driving through are greeted with cheers and asked to sign autographs on flags.

The soldiers from the Russian army could enter the house in any moment, even if they were not currently there, and they were terrified.

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

CNN military analyst Cedric Leighton stated that there was going to be a major urban operation for the Ukrainian military. What you are going to see is a methodical operation to clear buildings of potential booby traps and mines.

For many of the journey through small towns and settlements, we had to drive through fields and canals that had been blown up and roads filled with anti-tank mines.

The outskirts of the city that had been occupied by Russian forces since March 3 was completely empty except for a Ukrainian checkpoint 5 miles away where half a dozen soldiers waved CNN’s crew in.

The city’s residents have no water, no internet connection and little power. The mood in the city center was great as a 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.

As CNN’s crew stopped to regroup, we observed an old man and an old woman hugging a young soldier, with hands on the soldier’s shoulder, exchanging excited “thank yous.”

Everyone wants to understand what they have been through, how much they are grateful to the countries that have helped them, and how euphoric they feel right now.

Explosive Landmines in Kherson City, Ukraine: A Mayor’s Warning and a First-Principles Warning against Explosives

“There is practically no water supply in the town. There is a shortage of food which is not produced due to 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.

He said that he now calls Kherson a front line city. In the early hours of this morning, you could hear outgoing fire towards the Russian forces.

On Saturday, the National Police of Ukraine warned of mass mining, with one of their representatives injured while demining an administrative building in the city.

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 10 groups of bomb disposal experts working in Kherson, as well as the police and defense forces.

The weather is getting worse with no heat in Kherson city and sub-zero temperatures at night. Ukrainian authorities have said that those who find it too hard to live in Kherson can move to other parts of the country, since they do now have freedom of movement.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/europe/ukraine-kherson-food-shortages-mines-intl/index.html

First World War II: Zelenskyy’s Freedom Address to the City of Kherson (Ukraine), the Birthplace of the First Ukrainian Revolution

CNN obtained pictures from Maxar Technologies showing water flowing out of three gates at the dam, where a major hydroelectric project is situated.

KHERSON, Ukraine — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a surprise visit Monday to the key southern city of Kherson to celebrate its liberation from eight months of Russian occupation.

He appeared in front of the main government building wearing a military-style jacket and clothing with heavily armed security surrounding him. One of the biggest victories of the war was achieved by Ukraine as he waved to residents.

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.

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

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