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Kyiv said on Saturday that the West was on its way to “joint victory” over Moscow after Ukraine said it had wrested back Kherson, the first major urban hub to fall after Russia’s invasion on February 24. 

London meanwhile said Russia’s “strategic failure” in the strategic Black Sea port city would sow doubt among the Russian public about the point of the war in Ukraine.

“There were very few who believed that Ukraine would survive,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said as he met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the sidelines of a Southeast Asian summit in Cambodia.

“This is coming, and our victory will be our joint victory — a victory of all peace-loving nations across the world.”

Blinken hailed the “remarkable courage” of Ukraine’s military and people and vowed that US support “will continue for as long as it takes” to defeat Russia.

The humiliating Russian retreat was a huge boost to Ukrainians after months of suffering.

The secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, Oleksiy Danilov, said the liberation of all annexed territories was just a matter of time. 

“We are not going to put anything on ice,” he said. “We are not a freezer.”

The Ukrainian national anthem rang out in Kherson’s central square as a small crowd sang along while huddled around a bonfire, a video published by Ukraine’s parliament on social media showed. 

“Special units are already in the city,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Telegram, posting footage in which Ukrainian troops appeared to gather with residents.

– ‘Extraordinary victory’ –

About 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Kherson, Andriy Zholob, a commander of a medical unit, said they had been greeted by smiling faces and given “embroidered towels which we display on our vehicles”. 

“We see children running to meet us and greeting us,” Zholob told AFP.

In the nearby region of Mykolaiv, which Russian forces have failed to capture despite months of attacks, governor Vitaliy Kim said the entire region apart from the Kinburn Spit in the south had been returned to Ukrainian control.

The US hailed Ukraine’s “extraordinary victory” in recapturing Kherson from the Russians on Saturday. 

“It’s a big moment and it’s due to the incredible tenacity and skill of the Ukrainians, backed by the relentless and united support of the United States and our allies,” US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said.

British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said Saturday that Kherson could prompt ordinary Russians to question the war. 

“In February, Russia failed to take any of its major objectives except Kherson,” Wallace said in a statement.

“Now with that also being surrendered, ordinary people of Russia must surely ask themselves: ‘What was it all for?'”

Kuleba however warned that Kyiv still sees “Russia mobilising more conscripts and bringing more weapons to Ukraine” and called for the Western world’s continued support. 

– Ukrainian television back on  –

In Kherson, Kyiv’s forces reconnected the local television network to Ukrainian broadcasters after local media reported that retreating Russian forces blew up the television tower and energy facilities, leaving the city without power.

Russia’s defence ministry said “more than 30,000 Russian servicemen, about 5,000 pieces of hardware and military equipment and materiel have been withdrawn”.

Kherson’s full recapture by Kyiv would be a political and symbolic blow to Putin and open a gateway for Ukraine’s forces to the entire Kherson region, with access to both the Black Sea in the west and Sea of Azov in the east.

– ‘In tears’ –

In Ukraine’s capital, the news was met with joy.

Wrapped in flags, popping champagne corks and belting out the Ukrainian national anthem, residents of Kherson living in Kyiv gathered in the city’s central Maidan square to celebrate.

“I didn’t believe it at first, I thought it was going to take weeks and months, a few hundred metres at a time, and now we see them arrive in Kherson in one day, it’s the best surprise,” said Artem Lukiv, 41, a Kherson resident living in Kyiv.

The Kremlin meanwhile insisted that Kherson was still part of Russia.

“This is a subject of the Russian Federation. There are no changes in this and there cannot be changes,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

A full Ukrainian recapture of the Kherson region would disrupt a vital land bridge for Russia between its mainland and the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Kherson was one of four regions in Ukraine that Putin claimed to have annexed in September.

Southeast Asian regional bloc ASEAN gained a surprise new member from the other side of the world Saturday — at least for an instant, courtesy of a verbal slip by US President Joe Biden.

“I want to thank the prime minister for Colombia’s leadership as ASEAN chair,” Biden said as he opened talks with regional leaders in Phnom Penh chaired by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.

South America’s Colombia seems to be on the US president’s mind, because he made the same mistake as he set out from the White House for his long trip to Asia.

He told reporters he was “heading over to Colombia”, before quickly correcting himself to say “I mean Cambodia”.

Biden, who turns 80 this month, has been known as a gaffe machine for much of his storied career in Washington.

His latest glitch, while geographically challenged, was still perhaps less glaring than Vice President Kamala Harris’s statement during a September visit to the demilitarised zone separating North and South Korea.

On that occasion Harris said that the US has “an alliance with the Republic of North Korea.  And it is an alliance that is strong and enduring.”

President Joe Biden’s Democrats edged closer to retaining control of the US Senate on Friday, as Donald Trump prepared to declare his bid for the White House in 2024.

Democratic Senator Mark Kelly won re-election in Arizona, three television networks projected. His victory will give Democrats 49 Senate seats, one short of securing a majority, with Nevada still counting votes and Georgia’s contest headed to a December 6 runoff.

Blake Masters, Kelly’s Republican opponent in Arizona, did not immediately concede defeat, and late on Friday Trump claimed the result was “a scam and voter fraud”.

President Joe Biden phoned Kelly to congratulate him on his win, the White House said.

Trump will announce next week that he is taking another shot at the presidency in 2024, his longtime advisor Jason Miller said Friday.

The divisive former president, who will be 78 when the next election is held, has been hinting at another presidential run while campaigning for Republican candidates ahead of this week’s midterm elections, and said he will make a “very big announcement” on Tuesday.

“President Trump is going to announce on Tuesday that he is running for president,” Miller told former Trump aide Steve Bannon on his popular “War Room” podcast.

Trump’s candidacy would be his third shot at the presidency, including his loss to Biden in 2020. After that defeat, he promoted baseless claims of fraud, including those that led to an unprecedented riot at the US Capitol in Washington.

– Seats flipped –

Trump’s big announcement in Florida will come after a disappointing run for several candidates he backed in the midterms, although more than 100 Republican candidates who challenged the 2020 presidential results still won their respective races.

Some of his hand-picked favorites, however, lost key Republican-held seats to Democrats.

In Pennsylvania, Democrats flipped a US Senate seat with constant attacks on Trump-endorsed celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, who had never held public office and lives mostly in New Jersey.

Trump had hoped to ride a Republican “red wave” that would prime him for another presidential run but the party looks headed for a much smaller victory than had been predicted.

With 211 seats so far, Republicans appear poised to secure a slim majority in the 435-seat House of Representatives. Control of the Senate, however, may come down to a December 6 runoff in the southeastern state of Georgia.

With both parties tied at 49 Senate seats, Democrats now need only one more win to retain control of that chamber, because Vice President Kamala Harris will cast any tie-breaking votes in the upper house.

– January 6 investigation –

Also on Friday, Trump’s lawyers challenged a subpoena from the Congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.

They claimed he had “absolute immunity” and would not testify next week.

The subpoena is “invalid, unlawful, and unenforceable,” the lawyers said in the lawsuit, because Trump “has absolute immunity from being compelled to testify before Congress… regarding his actions as head of a co-equal branch of government.”

Trump’s early entry into the race may be designed in part to fend off possible criminal charges over taking top secret documents from the White House; his efforts to overturn the 2020 election; and the US Capitol attack.

It may also be intended to undercut his chief potential rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who secured a comfortable re-election and emerged as one of the biggest winners in Tuesday’s midterms.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky declared Kherson “ours” after Russia withdrew troops from the city, which the US hailed Saturday as an “extraordinary victory”.

“We are winning battles on the ground. But the war continues,” foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said after Ukraine’s triumphant recovery of Kherson — the only regional capital Moscow had captured in the nine months since Russia’s invasion. 

In the port city located on the Black Sea, the Ukrainian national anthem rang out in the central Kherson square as a small crowd sang along while huddled around a bonfire, a video published by Ukraine’s parliament on social media showed. 

“Special units are already in the city,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram, posting footage in which Ukrainian troops appeared to gather with residents.

About 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Kherson, Andriy Zholob, a commander of a medical unit, said they had greeted by smiling faces and given “embroidered towels which we display on our vehicles”. 

“We see children running to meet us and greeting us,” Zholob told AFP.

In nearby Mykolaiv province, which Russian forces have failed to capture despite months of attacks, governor Vitaliy Kim said the entire region, save for the Kinburn cape in the south, had been returned to Ukrainian control.

“Now it’s official: the entire Mykolaiv region (except Kinburn) has been liberated,” Kim wrote on Telegram.

The US hailed Ukraine’s “extraordinary victory” in recapturing Kherson from the Russians on Saturday. 

“It’s a big moment and it’s due to the incredible tenacity and skill of the Ukrainians, backed by the relentless and united support of the United States and our allies,” US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said while travelling to Cambodia with President Joe Biden for a regional summit.

But Kuleba — attending the same summit — warned that Kyiv still sees “Russia mobilising more conscripts and bringing more weapons to Ukraine”. 

“I understand that everyone wants this war to end as soon as possible,” he said during a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in which he called for the Western world’s continued support. 

“We are definitely the ones who want that more than anyone else.”

– Ukrainian television back on  –

In Kherson, Kyiv’s forces reconnected the local television network to Ukrainian broadcasters after local media reported that retreating Russian forces blew up the television tower and energy facilities, leaving the city without power.

Kyiv’s defence ministry said earlier Friday that Kherson “is returning to Ukrainian control and units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are entering the city”.

Ukrainian artillery teams had clear views of Russia’s routes of retreat and warned: “Any attempts to oppose the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be stopped.”

Russia’s defence ministry said “more than 30,000 Russian servicemen, about 5,000 pieces of hardware and military equipment and materiel have been withdrawn”.

Kherson was the first major urban hub to fall after President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine on February 24. 

Its full recapture by Kyiv would be a political and symbolic blow to Putin and open a gateway for Ukraine’s forces to the entire Kherson region, with access to both the Black Sea in the west and Sea of Azov in the east.

“Ukraine is gaining another important victory right now and proves that whatever Russia says or does, Ukraine will win,” Kuleba wrote on social media.

He posted an amateur video showing Ukrainians removing a billboard near Kherson that proclaimed: “Russia is here forever”.

– ‘In tears’ –

In Ukraine’s capital, the news was met with joy.

Wrapped in flags, popping champagne corks and belting out the Ukrainian national anthem, residents of Kherson living in Kyiv gathered in the city’s Maidan square to celebrate.

“I didn’t believe it at first, I thought it was going to take weeks and months, a few hundred metres at a time, and now we see them arrive in Kherson in one day, it’s the best surprise,” said Artem Lukiv, 41, a Kherson resident living in Kyiv.

While it would appear a major Russian setback, the Kremlin insisted that Kherson was still part of Russia and that it did not regret annexing the entire Kherson region at a lavish ceremony in late September.

“This is a subject of the Russian Federation. There are no changes in this and there cannot be changes,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

A full Ukrainian recapture of the Kherson region would disrupt a vital land bridge for Russia between its mainland and the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

– ‘Cynical’ attack –

Ukrainian officials were initially wary after Moscow announced this week that it would pull forces to defensive positions on the east bank of the river in the city.

Kherson was one of four regions in Ukraine that Putin claimed to have annexed during the September ceremony, vowing at the time to use all available methods to defend it.

Asked by reporters whether Russia regretted annexing Kherson, Peskov said the Kremlin had “no regrets” about the move.

Earlier on Friday, a Russian strike on a residential building in Mykolaiv killed seven people, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said on social media.

An AFP journalist at the scene saw a gaping hole gouged out of a Soviet-style residential building with emergency workers in yellow helmets on site clearing rubble.

Zelensky branded the strike a “cynical response to our successes at the front”.

Sitting next to Xi Jinping during one of their marathon sessions in 2011, Joe Biden saluted the direction of US-China ties.

“The trajectory of the relationship is nothing but positive,” Biden told businesspeople who came to see the two vice presidents at a Beijing hotel, voicing “great optimism about the next 30 years”.

As the two leaders, now presidents, prepare to meet again little more than a decade into that timeframe, the trajectory of relations is anything but positive — and virtually no US policymaker is optimistic about Xi, China’s most powerful leader in decades who just secured a historic third term.

Biden and Xi will hold talks Monday on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit in Bali at a time of rising US alarm. Xi’s China, in the words of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, has become “more repressive at home” and “more aggressive abroad” — with the threat of China invading Taiwan, once largely theoretical, increasingly seen as real.

It will be the first in-person meeting between the US and Chinese presidents since Donald Trump spoke in 2019 with Xi, who only recently resumed international travel following the pandemic.

But Biden and Xi know each other unusually well for two world leaders. They have talked by phone or videoconference five times since the Democrat entered the White House in 2021.

And the relationship goes much deeper.

When Xi was leader in waiting, Biden flew to China in 2011 and later invited him to tour the United States including rural Iowa, where a young Xi had gone on an exchange.

Biden said that as vice president he spent 67 hours in person with Xi, part of an effort by the then administration of Barack Obama at least to understand, if not court, the rising Chinese leader.

– Cold calculations –

US officials and experts have since come to believe that the 69-year-old Xi has no desire for moderation, with the new Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party stacked with hardliners and lacking any obvious heir apparent.

“We all knew that Xi Jinping was going to prevail. But I think people are still surprised that Xi Jinping could not even find the grace to save some accommodation for his political opponents,” said Yun Sun, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington.

With the Party Congress over, Xi now has greater space and flexibility to focus on his international push for a stronger China, she said.

“We are not looking at a Xi Jinping who is going to be less emboldened,” she said.

Both Biden and Trump have identified China as the preeminent global competitor to the United States. But while Trump by late in his term was railing against China on everything from trade to Covid-19, Biden has supported talks on narrow areas of cooperation.

Biden told reporters Wednesday he would speak to Xi about each country’s “red lines” in hopes of avoiding conflict.

Chief among red lines for China is Taiwan, the self-governing democracy Beijing claims as its own, with Beijing carrying out exercises seen as a trial run for an invasion to protest against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit in August.

Biden has said three times that the United States would defend Taiwan militarily if China attacks, although the White House has walked back the apparent shift from longstanding US ambiguity.

Privately some US allies have cheered on the more forceful approach towards Beijing including on the South China Sea, where Washington has moved from neutrality to championing Southeast Asian nations’ myriad claims.

“There is a widespread feeling that the United States has finally understood the nature of the threat,” said a senior Washington-based diplomat from an Asian country friendly with the United States.

– Inching away –

The United States has also made initial moves with allies on a once unthinkable idea — easing two decades of economic reliance on China, which is racing ahead under Xi to dominate next-generation technology and where Covid lockdowns have exposed the fragility of supply chains.

“Seeing what the US is doing to sort of de facto decouple or separate, at least in the technology space, that may be changing calculations” of other Asian countries, said Matt Goodman, senior vice president for economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Biden has voiced hope for working with China, the largest carbon emitter, on climate change, and officials said Saturday that Biden would press Xi on North Korea, a Chinese ally that has launched a volley of missiles in recent weeks.

Yun doubted China would oblige, saying that Xi views cooperation as transactional.

“With competition the main theme of the US’s China policy, why would China cooperate?” she said.

“Their calculation is that they are not going to do anything from the goodness of their hearts. They want to see the US give something.”

President Joe Biden’s Democrats edged closer to retaining control of the US Senate on Friday, as Donald Trump prepared to declare his bid for the White House in 2024.

Democratic Senator Mark Kelly won re-election in Arizona, three television networks announced. His victory gives Democrats 49 Senate seats, one short of securing a majority, with Nevada still counting votes and Georgia’s contest headed to a December 6 runoff.

If the two parties split the remaining two seats, the Democrats retain control of the Senate because Vice President Kamala Harris will cast the tie-breaking vote.

Blake Masters, the Republican rival to Kelly, did not immediately concede defeat in Arizona, and late Friday Trump posted on his social media account that some voting machines in Arizona didn’t work and the result is “a scam and voter fraud… Do election over again!” 

Trump will announce next week that he is taking another shot at the presidency with a White House run in 2024, his longtime advisor Jason Miller said Friday.

The divisive former president, who will be 78 when the next election is held, has been hinting at another presidential run while campaigning for Republican candidates ahead of this week’s midterm elections, and said he will make a “very big announcement” on Tuesday.

“President Trump is going to announce on Tuesday that he is running for president,” Miller told former Trump aide Steve Bannon on his popular “War Room” podcast.

“It’s gonna be a very professional, very buttoned-up announcement,” he added.

Miller said Trump told him, “there doesn’t need to be any question, of course, I am running.”

Trump’s candidacy will mark his third shot at the presidency, including his loss to Joe Biden in 2020. After that defeat, he promoted baseless claims of fraud, including those that led to an unprecedented riot at the US Capitol in Washington.

– Seats flipped –

Trump’s big announcement in Florida comes after a disappointing run for several candidates he backed in the midterms. 

Some of his hand-picked favorites even lost Republican-held seats to Democrats.

In Pennsylvania, Democrats flipped a highly-prized US Senate seat with constant attacks on Trump-endorsed celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, who had never held public office before and lived mostly in New Jersey.

Trump had hoped to ride a Republican “red wave” that would prime him for another presidential run but the party achieved a much smaller victory than had been predicted.

With 211 seats so far, Republicans appear poised to secure a slim majority in the 435-seat House of Representatives. However, control of the Senate may come down to a December 6 runoff in the southeastern state of Georgia.

The former president’s major media ally — the powerful empire of conservative billionaire Rupert Murdoch — even turned on him in the wake of the polls.

Pointing to the party’s disappointing midterms showing, The Wall Street Journal, the flagship of Murdoch’s News Corp, declared in an editorial on Thursday that “Trump Is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser.” 

The cover of the tabloid New York Post depicted Trump on a precarious wall as “Trumpty Dumpty” who “had a great fall.”

Nevertheless, more than 100 Republican candidates who challenged the 2020 presidential election results won their respective races.

Trump’s early entry into the race would appear designed in part to fend off possible criminal charges over taking top secret documents from the White House, his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the attack on the US Capitol by his supporters on January 6 last year.

It may also be intended to undercut his chief potential rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who emerged as one of the biggest winners in Tuesday’s midterms

Trump is still tangling with the congressional January 6 committee investigating the attack on the Capitol. Earlier Friday, his lawyers challenged a subpoena from the committee, saying Trump has “absolute immunity” and will not testify next week. 

The subpoena is “invalid, unlawful, and unenforceable,” the lawyers said in the lawsuit, because Trump “has absolute immunity from being compelled to testify before Congress… regarding his actions as head of a co-equal branch of government.” 

Former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit on Friday challenging a subpoena from the House committee investigating the 2021 attack on the US Capitol, saying he has “absolute immunity” and will not testify next week. 

Trump’s lawyers described the subpoena as “invalid, unlawful and unenforceable,” arguing the former president still enjoys executive privilege nearly 22 months after leaving office, and cannot be compelled by Congress to appear.

The January 6 committee has ordered him to appear for a deposition in person by Monday, which includes providing an extensive list of documents and communications connected to the assault on the Capitol.

The stakes are high – and the clock ticking – for both the congressional committee and 76-year-old Trump, who is expected to announce on Tuesday that he will run again for president in 2024.

He does so even as it remains unclear whether the Republican Party can recapture control of the lower House. 

Balloting from last Tuesday’s midterm elections shows the Republicans holding 200 of the 218 seats needed to reclaim the majority, ahead of the Democrats.

But two dozen seats in the 435-member House of Representatives have still not been decided with vote counting underway.

If Republicans take control of the House, they are likely to disband the January 6 committee, which has amassed evidence that it says proves Trump incited the assault in an attempt to deny Joe Biden his electoral victory.

The committee held a series of hearings earlier this year that its chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, said “left no doubt – none – that Donald Trump led an effort to upend American democracy” by inciting the assault. 

Prosecutors have charged more than 900 people with crimes related to the assault on the Capitol, and the Justice Department said last month that 412 people have pleaded guilty to any of a variety of federal charges.

At least seven people lost their lives in connection with the January 6 attack.

In his lawsuit, filed in federal court in West Palm Beach Florida, Trump said sitting and former US presidents have voluntarily agreed to testify or turn over documents after receiving a congressional subpoena but none “has ever been compelled to do so.”

That is because, the suit argues, Congress is a co-equal branch of government and “lacks authority” to compel such action and “President Trump is not required to comply.”

In the filing, Trump argues the subpoena is broader than reasonably necessary, infringes on executive privilege and his personal rights, and the committee does not have authority.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky declared Kherson “ours” after Russia withdrew troops from the city, which the US hailed Saturday as an “extraordinary victory”.

“As of now, our defenders are on the outskirts of the city. But special units are already in the city,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram, posting footage in which Ukrainian troops appeared to gather with residents.

“We see children running to meet us and greeting us,” said Andriy Zholob, the commander of a medical unit currently about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Kherson. 

“We see attractive, smiling faces, flowers, embroidered towels which we display on our vehicles,” he added.

Ukraine’s parliament published a video of the national anthem being played in a central Kherson square as a small crowd of people, huddled around a bonfire in the dark of night, sang along before the camera zoomed in on a Ukrainian flag flying from a government building.

“The Ukrainian anthem in the center of Kherson,” said the caption to the video, published on social media.

In nearby Mykolaiv province, which Russians have failed to capture but have subjected to months of attacks, governor Vitaliy Kim said the entire region, save for the Kinburn cape in the south, was returned to Ukrainian control.

“Now it’s official: the entire Mykolaiv region (except Kinburn) has been liberated,” Kim wrote on Telegram.

The US hailed Ukraine’s “extraordinary victory” in recapturing Kherson from the Russians on Saturday. 

“It’s a big moment and it’s due to the incredible tenacity and skill of the Ukrainians, backed by the relentless and united support of the United States and our allies,” US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said while travelling to Cambodia with President Joe Biden for a regional summit.

– Ukrainian television back on  –

In Kherson, Kyiv’s forces reconnected the local television network to Ukrainian broadcasters, after local media reported that retreating Russian forces blew up the television tower and energy facilities, leaving the city without power.

Kyiv’s defence ministry said earlier Friday that Kherson “is returning to Ukrainian control and units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are entering the city.”

Ukrainian artillery teams had clear views over Russia’s routes of retreat and warned: “Any attempts to oppose the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be stopped.”

Russia’s defence ministry said “more than 30,000 Russian servicemen, about 5,000 pieces of hardware and military equipment and materiel have been withdrawn”.

Kherson was the first major urban hub to fall after President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine on February 24. 

Its full recapture by Kyiv would be a political and symbolic blow to Putin and open a gateway for Ukraine’s forces to the entire Kherson region, with access to both the Black Sea in the west and Sea of Azov in the east.

“Ukraine is gaining another important victory right now and proves that whatever Russia says or does, Ukraine will win,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on social media.

He posted an amateur video showing Ukrainians removing a billboard near Kherson that proclaimed: “Russia is here forever”.

– ‘In tears’ –

In Ukraine’s capital, the news was met with joy.

Wrapped in flags, popping champagne corks and belting out the Ukrainian national anthem, residents of Kherson living in Kyiv gathered in the city’s Maidan square to celebrate.

“I didn’t believe it at first, I thought it was going to take weeks and months, a few hundred metres at a time, and now we see them arrive in Kherson in one day, it’s the best surprise,” said Artem Lukiv, 41, a Kherson resident living in Kyiv.

While it would appear a major Russian setback, the Kremlin insisted that Kherson was still part of Russia and that it did not regret annexing the entire Kherson region at a lavish ceremony in late September.

“This is a subject of the Russian Federation. There are no changes in this and there cannot be changes,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

A full Ukrainian recapture of the Kherson region would disrupt a vital land bridge for Russia between its mainland and the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

– ‘Cynical’ attack –

Ukrainian officials were initially wary after Moscow announced this week that it would pull forces to defensive positions on the east bank of the river in the city.

Kherson was one of four regions in Ukraine that Putin claimed to have annexed during the September ceremony, vowing at the time to use all available methods to defend it.

Asked by reporters whether Russia regretted annexing Kherson, Peskov said the Kremlin had “no regrets” about the move.

Earlier on Friday, a Russian strike on a residential building in Mykolaiv killed seven people, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said on social media.

An AFP journalist at the scene saw a gaping hole gouged out of a Soviet-style residential building with emergency workers in yellow helmets on site clearing rubble.

Zelensky branded the strike a “cynical response to our successes at the front”.