‘They ran away like goats’: Ukrainians celebrate Russia’s retreat from Kherson

Vladimir Putin said Russia would be here forever. In the end, they left in five minutes and ran away like goats, a Kherson resident told the newspaper Observer.

As Russian troops withdrew from the region that was under their control since the early days of the Ukraine invasion.

“Putin wanted to kill us. He’s ended up destroying his own country. Russia’s retreat from Kherson is an enormous failure,” he was quoted as saying by The Guardian.

Russia announced withdrawal from Kherson as it was no longer possible to keep Kherson city supplied. Although Ukraine remained wary of Russia’s ploy, its troops swept into the region. Residents waved blue-and-yellow flags and celebrated their first hours of freedom.

On Saturday, police, TV and radio services returned to the port city, which forms a land bridge from Russia to Crimea, the peninsula which Moscow annexed in 2014.

Locals danced around a bonfire outside the regional administration building, sang patriotic songs, and chanted Z-S-U, the initials of Ukraine’s armed forces, The Guardian reported. Some also waved banners adorned with watermelons, Kherson’s much-loved fruit, the report said.

But there are many challenges to rebuilding a city practically destroyed in war. Residents lack water, electricity, medicine and food, AP reported. When Russian troops left, water supplies were practically nonexistent, an official told news agency AP.

“Before fleeing from Kherson, the occupiers destroyed all critical infrastructure — communication, water supply, heat, electricity,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an address to his nation.

As for the Russian troops, they are setting up defences on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River. About 70% of the Kherson region still remains under Russian control.

As Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said: Ukraine is winning battles on the ground, but the war continues.