Zelenski visits Jerson a few hours after the withdrawal of Russian troops

The President of Ukraine, Volodímir Zelensky, visited the city of Kherson, capital of the homonymous region in southern Ukraine, on Monday and raised the country's flag in a ceremony in the center of the city, recently liberated from Russian military occupation.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
14 November 2022 Monday 04:30
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Zelenski visits Jerson a few hours after the withdrawal of Russian troops

The President of Ukraine, Volodímir Zelensky, visited the city of Kherson, capital of the homonymous region in southern Ukraine, on Monday and raised the country's flag in a ceremony in the center of the city, recently liberated from Russian military occupation. It is the president's first visit to the city, one of the main cities in Ukraine and the only capital in the region that the Russians managed to control militarily in the nine months since Russia invaded this country.

Zelensky announced on November 11 that the city of Kherson was once again under Ukrainian control, after Russian troops decided to withdraw to the other side of the Dnieper River, which acts as a natural border between the north and south of the region. .

A day later, the Office of the Ukrainian President reported that the head of the Kherson regional military administration, Yaroslav Yanushevych, employees of the National Police and the Security Service of Ukraine had already started work in the city and in the other areas of the region that had also been liberated.

Jerson, occupied by the Russians on March 2, was one of the Ukrainian regions, along with neighboring Zaporiyia, and eastern Donetsk and Lugansk, which were annexed by Russia, although Moscow has at no point managed to take control total over these territories.

The Kremlin has assured that the withdrawal of its troops to the other side of the Dnieper River is due to a reorganization of the front and a change in strategy in the invasion that began on February 24. Meanwhile, the Kyiv government fears that Russian soldiers could still attack the capital of Kherson from across the river and has called on the population not to return to the area until it is completely safe.

In his video address on Sunday, Ukraine's president denounced that the Russian army has caused "the same atrocities" in Kherson as in other regions of the country during its occupation, saying that "more than 400 war crimes" have already been documented. Russians".

Following the departure of the Russian army from Kherson last Friday, law and order will be guaranteed and restored in 226 settlements in the region. The authorities are recovering communication, Internet and television, and are doing "everything possible to restore normal technical capacities for the supply of electricity and water as soon as possible," said the president. However, the Kherson region "remains very dangerous," Zelensky warned.