Russia’s announcement is another setback for Putin, and a political win for Ukraine.
Russia says it is retreating from the Ukrainian city of Kherson, potentially abandoning a key southern city it has occupied since close to the start of the war.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced Wednesday that Russian troops would withdraw to the eastern side of the Dnieper River, territory that Russia still controls.
Ukrainian officials expressed some skepticism about a Russian retreat; they had recently worried that, though Russia had shown signs of a possible withdrawal, it might instead be a feint to lure Ukrainian forces into a costly urban battle. So the sentiment among Ukrainian leaders was basically: Ukraine will confirm a full-on Russian withdrawal when it sees it happen. Ukraine is “liberating territories based on intelligence data, not staged TV statements,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, tweeted.
Zelenskyy said Wednesday that “there is a lot of joy in the information space today, and it is clear why.”
“But our emotions must be restrained, always during war,” he added.
Even if there is some doubt about Russia’s exact moves, Moscow pulling out of the city of Kherson would represent a political and symbolic win for Ukraine — and another incredible defeat for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“You’re withdrawing from the biggest prize that you took after the invasion. That is the only big city, that’s Kherson, the capital of the province, and you’re withdrawing from there,” said Rajan Menon, director of the Grand Strategy program at Defense Priorities. “So how this can be spun as an act of strategic genius, I don’t know.”
Russian troops seized the city of Kherson in the early days after Putin launched his war in Ukraine, and it was the only regional capital held by Russia. In late September, Putin announced he had annexed four regions of Ukraine, including Kherson, and incorporated them into the Russian Federation. Though the international community broadly condemned these as the illegal land grabs they were, Russia’s possible retreat from this regional capital also shows the hollowness of Putin’s territorial claims, and undercuts his propaganda about liberating parts of Ukraine.
