It is one of their greatest defeats: After around eight months, the Russians have to withdraw their army from Cherson and relocate their administrative center for the region. The British Foreign Office calls the withdrawal a “public acknowledgment” of Russia’s difficulties in the region.
After withdrawing from the southern Ukrainian regional capital of Cherson, the Russian occupiers relocated their regional administration center to the part of the region of the same name that they still controlled. A large part of the Russian administration has already been relocated to the city of Henichesk, Russia’s state news agencies reported, citing a spokesman for the Cherson occupation administration.
Henichesk is located in the very southeast of Cherson on the Azov Sea and only a few dozen kilometers from the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Moscow annexed back in 2014. Russia had largely captured the Kherson region shortly after the start of its war of aggression in late February. In September, the Kremlin annexed Cherson, along with the Ukrainian regions of Zaporizhia, Luhansk and Donetsk, in violation of international law. Finally, under pressure from Ukrainian counter-offensives, Moscow announced last Wednesday that it would be withdrawing its troops from all parts of Cherson northwest of the Dnipro River, including the region’s capital.
International observers rate this as one of the biggest defeats for the Russian army in this war. the British Ministry of Defense speaks of considerable image damage for Russia. “The withdrawal is a public acknowledgment of the difficulties faced by Russian forces on the west bank of the Dnipro River,” it said in London.
British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace spoke of “another strategic failure”. The Russian capture of Cherson at the beginning of the war was the only time that Russia had achieved an important goal. If the city were to be abandoned again, people in Russia would ask themselves more and more what the war was for.
The ministry doubted that Russia evacuated troops and material in the shortest possible time. Rather, it is likely that the withdrawal had already been initiated on October 22, when the Russian occupation administration asked the civilian population to leave the city. Since then, Russia has probably brought military equipment and armed forces in civilian clothes together with the 80,000 officially evacuated civilians from the city.
The British ministry also said that Russia is still trying to evacuate units from other parts of the Kherson Oblast to defensive positions across the Dnipro. “Russian forces most likely destroyed road and rail bridges across the Dnipro as part of this process,” it said in London.
