Ukraine works to stabilize Kherson after Russia ends months-long occupation

Ukrainian police officers returned on Saturday, along with TV and radio services, to the southern city of Kherson following the withdrawal of Russian troops, part of fast but cautious efforts to make the only regional capital captured by Russia livable after months of occupation. Yet one official still described the city as "a humanitarian catastrophe."

People across Ukraine awoke from a night of jubilant celebrating after the Kremlin announced its troops had withdrawn to the other side of the Dnipro River from Kherson. The Ukrainian military said it was overseeing "stabilization measures" around the city to make sure it was safe.

The Russian retreat represented a significant setback for the Kremlin some six weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed the Kherson region and three other provinces in Ukraine's south and east, in breach of international law, and declared them Russian territory.

Ihor Klymenko, chief of the National Police of Ukraine, said Saturday on Facebook that some 200 officers were at work in the city, setting up checkpoints and documenting evidence of possible war crimes. Police teams were also working to identify and neutralize unexploded ordnance, and one sapper was injured on Saturday while demining an administrative building, Klymenko said.

Ukraine's communications watchdog said national television and radio broadcasts had resumed, and an adviser to Kherson's mayor said humanitarian aid and supplies had begun to arrive from the neighbouring Mykolaiv region.

But the adviser, Roman Holovnya, described the situation in Kherson as "a humanitarian catastrophe." He said the remaining residents lacked water, medicine and food — and key basics like bread went unbaked because of a lack of electricity.

"The occupiers and collaborators did everything possible so that those people who remained in the city suffered as much as possible over those days, weeks, months of waiting" for Ukraine's forces to arrive, Holovnya said. "Water supplies are practically non-existent."

The chairman of Khersonoblenergo, the region's pre-war power provider, said electricity was being returned "to every settlement in the Kherson region immediately after the liberation."

Despite the efforts to restore normal civilian life, Russian forces remain close by. The General Staff of Ukraine's armed forces said Saturday that the Russians were fortifying their battle lines on the river's eastern bank after abandoning the capital. About 70 per cent of the Kherson region remains under Russian control.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address on Saturday that Ukrainian forces have established control of more than 60 settlements in the Kherson region, and "stabilization measures are also ongoing in Kherson itself."

"Everywhere in the liberated territory, our explosives technicians have a lot of work to do. Almost 2,000 explosive items have already been removed," Zelenskyy said. "Before fleeing from Kherson, the occupiers destroyed all critical infrastructure — communication, water supply, heat, electricity."

Photos posted to social media on Saturday showed Ukrainian activists removing memorial plaques put up by the occupation authorities that were installed by the Kremlin to run the Kherson region. A post on the Telegram messaging service — on the channel of Yellow Ribbon, a self-described Ukrainian resistance movement — showed two people in a park taking down plaques picturing Soviet-era military figures.

Moscow's announcement that Russian forces were withdrawing across the Dnipro River, which divides both the Kherson region and Ukraine, followed a stepped-up Ukrainian counter-offensive in the country's south.

In the last two months, Ukraine's military said it had reclaimed dozens of towns and villages north of Kherson city, and the military said that's where the stabilization activities were taking place.