After liberation, Kherson residents faced shortages and mines



CNN

Residents of newly liberated city of Kherson almost without water and facing shortages of bread and medicine, officials warned, as efforts continued on Sunday to clear mines and rebuild vital infrastructure following the withdrawal of Russian troops.

Crowds celebrated the city’s liberation on Saturday after Ukrainian troops broke into the city and Russian troops retreated to the east.

But life is still far from normal: Authorities are warning residents to beware of explosives littering the city, and Russian troops are still nearby across the strategically important Dnieper River.

This is not the end of the fight against Russian occupation in the country, according to CNN’s Nick Robertson, who witnessed emotional scenes on Saturday in Kherson’s central square as residents cheered for their liberation.

A local resident hugs a Ukrainian soldier as people celebrate Russia's retreat from Kherson, in downtown Kherson, Ukraine November 12, 2022.

“Now Kherson is a front-line city,” he said. “Last night and early in the morning, you could hear outgoing fire on Russian troops.”

On Saturday, the National Police of Ukraine warned that “the main threat at the moment is mass mining.” A police representative was injured while clearing one of the city’s administrative buildings.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned in an overnight address on Saturday that nearly 2,000 “explosive items” such as mines, trip wires and unexploded ordnance have already been removed from the Kherson region. He urged Kherson residents “to be careful and not try to independently check any buildings and objects left by the occupiers.”

“10 groups of sappers are working in Kherson, the police are working, there are various units of the defense forces,” Zelensky said.

Meanwhile, the makings of a dire humanitarian situation are unfolding in the city, with no electricity and limited access to food and water.

“Water supply in the city is practically non-existent. There is not enough medicine, not enough bread, which is not produced due to lack of electricity. There are also problems with food,” adviser to the mayor of Kherson Roman Golovnya said on Saturday.

Residents of Kherson collect water from a well after the liberation of the city by Ukrainian troops.

An undesirable blow fell on the infrastructure: Zelensky said that “before fleeing from Kherson, the invaders destroyed all critical infrastructure – communications, water supply, heat, electricity.”

Weather conditions are getting tougher, with sub-zero temperatures at night, the CNN team in Kherson reports, and there is no heating in the city. Ukrainian authorities have said that those who find it too hard to live in Kherson can move to other parts of the country, as they now have freedom of movement.

While crowds celebrated the liberation of Kherson on Saturday, authorities are warning of a serious shortage in the city.

Meanwhile, a critical dam on the Dnieper River in Nova Kakhovka, Kherson region, has been damaged.

Satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies obtained by CNN on Friday showed water leaking from three locks at the dam, where a major hydroelectric project is located.

On Sunday, Volodymyr Leontier, a Russian-appointed official in Nova Kakhovka, told Russian state television that the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station had suffered “enormous” damage from Ukrainian military shelling and repairs would take at least a year.

Pro-Russian officials in the annexed Kherson region say that the evacuation of civilians and the withdrawal of Russian troops from the western bank of the Dnieper to the eastern bank is due to the threat of flooding, which could occur if the Ukrainian military strikes Kakhovka. hydroelectric dam

Ukraine did not state that it was the party that shelled the plant.

Speaking on Saturday about the next steps for the Ukrainian military in Kherson, CNN military analyst Cedric Leighton said: “This is going to be a major urban operation. What you will see is a systematic operation to clear buildings of potential booby traps and mines.

“Another thing that the Ukrainians will have to do is to move their systems forward so that they can counter any possible Russian artillery that will be on the eastern bank of the Dnieper.

“You see that the Ukrainians crossed to the other side of the river, they now control this area, they have to clean up part of the remaining Russian forces that did not leave the western bank of the Dnieper. And those that are, most likely, will either surrender, or, in fact, will be withdrawn from the fight.

Russian troops have concentrated their efforts in the Kherson region on equipping their defensive lines on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River, according to an operational summary of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (APU) on Sunday evening.

On Friday, Russia announced that it had withdrawn from the western bank of the Dnieper in the strategic southern region of Kherson, leaving the regional capital of the same name and surrounding areas to the Ukrainians.

The retreat represents a major blow to Putin’s military efforts in Ukraine. Kherson was the only regional capital in Ukraine that Russian troops captured after the February invasion.

Their withdrawal east across the Dnieper gives way to large tracts of land that Russia has occupied since the early days of the war and that Putin officially declared Russian territory just five weeks ago.

The Ukrainian military said on Sunday that the Russians were continuing their offensive in the areas of Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Novopavlivka, all in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. The Armed Forces of Ukraine added that other areas, such as Kupyansk and Liman, are also under artillery fire.