Zelensky had previously appeared unexpectedly in other front-line zones at critical moments of the war, to support the troops and congratulate them on their achievements on the battlefield. The video showed Zelensky greeting residents who waved to him from an apartment window and shouted “Glory to Ukraine!” The answer “Glory to the heroes!” returned by Zelensky’s group, consisting of soldiers and others. “This is the beginning of the end of the war,” he said. “We are coming step by step to all the temporarily occupied territories.” The liberation of Kherson after a devastating offensive that forced Russia to withdraw its forces from the city was one of Ukraine’s biggest successes so far in the nearly nine-month invasion and a stinging blow to the Kremlin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday declined to comment on Zelensky’s visit to Kherson, saying only that “you know it is the territory of the Russian Federation.” In this photo provided by the Press Office of the Ukrainian Presidency and posted on Facebook, Ukrainian soldiers take a selfie with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his visit to Kherson. (Press Office of the President of Ukraine/The Associated Press) After the Russian retreat, Ukrainian authorities say they are finding evidence of torture and other atrocities. In his late-night video address on Sunday, Zelensky said without elaborating that “investigators have already documented more than 400 Russian war crimes and bodies of civilians and military personnel have been found.” “In the Kherson region, the Russian army left behind the same atrocities as in other regions of our country,” he said. “We will find and bring to justice every killer. No doubt.”
Infrastructure challenges
The end of the eight-month Russian occupation of the city of Kherson has sparked days of celebration, but also exposed a humanitarian emergency, with residents living without electricity and water and short of food and medicine. Russia still controls about 70 percent of the greater Kherson region. Ukrainian police called on residents to help identify people who collaborated with Russian forces. Ukrainian soldiers pull a car out of a crater on the road in the Kherson region on Sunday. (AFP/Getty Images) Zelensky urged people in the liberated zone to also be alert for traps, saying: “Please do not forget that the situation in the Kherson region is still very dangerous. First of all, there are mines. Unfortunately, one of our swordsmen were killed and four others injured during mine clearance”. And he promised that essential services would be restored. “We are doing everything to restore normal technical possibilities for the supply of electricity and water as soon as possible,” he said. “We’ll bring back transport and mail. Let’s bring back ambulance and regular medicine.” Residents said departing Russian troops ransacked the town, making away with the loot as they left last week. They also destroyed key infrastructure before retreating to the wide Dnipro River on its eastern bank. A Ukrainian official described the situation in Kherson as a “humanitarian disaster”. Reconnecting the electricity supply is the priority, with natural gas supplies already secured, Kherson regional governor Yaroslav Yanusevic said. The Russian withdrawal marked a triumphant milestone in Ukraine’s pushback against Moscow’s invasion nearly nine months ago. Over the past two months, Ukraine’s military has claimed to have recaptured dozens of towns and villages north of the city of Kherson. CBC News: The House12:49 Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum on the war in Ukraine Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum joins host Catherine Cullen to discuss what the end of the war in Ukraine — and Putin’s reign — might look like. The Ukrainian army has now retaken three large areas of the country in its counter-offensives – the region north of Kiev, the northeastern region of Kharkiv and now Kherson and many neighboring settlements. The liberation of Kherson came about six weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed the Kherson region and three other provinces in southern and eastern Ukraine – in violation of international law – and declared them Russian territory.
