The headline, written in thick white capitals, crossed out the homepage of the Ukrainian news site Oukrainska Pravda on Friday afternoon, November 11, as if the editors had difficulty believing it: “Ukrainian troops already in Kherson”.
At that time, there were only a few images, a few snippets of unconfirmed information evoking the arrival of Ukrainian special forces in the suburbs of this city in the south of the country, the only regional capital captured by the Russian army since the beginning of its invasion in February.
Images of jubilant residents
The confirmation will come later, at the end of the day, when millions of Ukrainians watched again and again these images of residents in jubilation and in tears welcoming the Ukrainian soldiers, first in the small villages of the Kherson region. , then to the main square of the city itself, adorned with Ukrainian and European flags.
“Ukraine’s greatest military victory” enthused the journalist Ivan Yakovina. “A historic day” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky commented in the evening, praising the residents of Kherson “who were waiting for Ukraine”. ” I’m crying ” simply reacted to La Croix a resident of Kherson who had taken refuge in kyiv.
An unprecedented euphoria
If the victorious counter-offensive of the Ukrainian army in the region of Kharkiv, in the East, had, in September, given a boost to a Ukrainian society in which the idea of a war The long and exhausting recapture of Kherson, which fell into the hands of the Russian army in the first days of March, unleashed a euphoria unprecedented in Ukraine since the start of the war.
On the evening of November 11, several hundred of them descended on kyiv’s Independence Square, but also in Odessa and other cities in Ukraine, to celebrate the victory and sing the Ukrainian national anthem.
Fears of a possible trap
kyiv had in recent weeks tried to temporize: when a series of signs – disappearance of the Russian flag on the building of the regional administration, images showing abandoned checkpoints in life – already seemed to indicate a Russian withdrawal, the Ukrainian authorities had called for caution, citing a possible trap.
Moscow’s announcement concerning the withdrawal of its troops on the left bank of the right had been received in kyiv with a skepticism which we do not know whether it was feigned or not. A few hours before the arrival of the Ukrainian vanguard in Kherson, the Minister of Defense
Less than 48 hours to enter Kherson
Oleksiy Reznikov had assured that it could be a week before the Ukrainian army took full possession of the city. In the end, it took less than 48 hours after the announcement of the Russian withdrawal for the Ukrainian army to return to a city of Kherson deserted by Moscow.
“I don’t understand why Russia has plunged Kherson into a nightmare for these 8 eight months, reacted on her personal page Kristina Berdynskykh, a Ukrainian investigative journalist from Kherson. Was it just to collect Potemkin’s ashes before fleeing? “. The Russian occupation administration had indeed announced at the beginning of November that it had seized the remains of the famous Russian prince, colonizer of southern Ukraine and lover of Empress Catherine II.
Do not immediately return to the villages of the region
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s enthusiasm was barely tempered in his November 11 address by the evocation of a city “not yet completely cleared of the enemy presence”. Devastated by months of strikes, partly emptied of its population, without electricity after Russian forces blew up the energy system. Kherson today remains within reach of the Russian artillery, redeployed on the left bank of the Dnieper.
Handling the delicate balance between celebration and caution, the Ukrainian authorities have at the same time urged the population not to immediately return to the villages of the region taken over by the Ukrainian army.
“I understand that everyone wants to get home as soon as possible but I implore you to wait a little longer, there is a very high probability that the“enemy bombards newly vacated localities” thus declared in a video message the head of the military administration of Kherson, Yaroslav Yanoushevich. In the rest of Ukraine, a long weekend of celebration was beginning.