Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday visited Kherson, the southern city from where Russian forces were forced to retreat after months of occupation, according to sources at the Ukrainian presidency and AFP.
Ukrainian troops entered Kherson on Friday when Russian troops abandoned the southeastern city which they controlled for the past eight months.
Released photos showed Zelensky singing the national anthem as his nation’s flag was hoisted in the liberated city.
“We are moving forward,” the Ukrainian President told troops standing in formation in front of the administration building in the city's main square. “We are ready for peace, peace for all our country.”
Parents with children, some pushing baby strollers, also gathered in the main square in front of the administration building that until recently was occupied by Russian forces, according to Reuters.
Some people waved Ukrainian flags and others had the flag draped over their shoulders.
Zelensky noted that the delivery of high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) from the United States had made a big difference to Ukraine's war effort.
“I’m really happy, you can tell by the reaction of the people, their reaction is not staged,” said the President.
Minutes before he arrived, nearby shelling could be heard in the center of Kherson. After he finished speaking, several more blasts of artillery gunfire echoed over the city.
In Moscow, the Kremlin affirmed on Monday that Kherson is still part of Russia.
When asked about Zelensky’s visit to the city, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “No comment. This is Russian territory.”
Zelensky said Russian troops committed “atrocities” during their occupation of the area, while local residents speak of the extensive damage left behind in the southern Ukrainian city by the Kremlin's retreating forces.
On Sunday, residents of Kherson celebrated the end of Russia's eight-month occupation, waving flags and beeping their car horns, according to AFP reporters.
Ruined buildings and destroyed military vehicles could be seen at the entrance to the strategic Black Sea port city where battles raged just days ago.
A smell of burning wood wafted through the air.
On Sunday, Zelensky said the bodies of the killed are being found, both civilians and military.
“We will find and bring to justice every murderer,” he stressed.
He said investigators have already documented more than 400 war crimes, without clearly specifying the area in which they were found.
Meanwhile, many residents — some wrapped in Ukrainian flags — queued to get food and to use Starlink satellite internet to connect with relatives.
Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine said that Russian servicemen, who never made it to withdraw from the liberated Kherson region along with their units have changed into civilian outfits, trying to evade arrest and accountability for war crimes.
The official Ukrainian news agency, Ukrinform, quoted Danilov as telling the national telethon, that a certain part of the Russian servicemen change into civilian clothes in order to hide and avoid accountability.
Lately, Ukraine’s defense forces liberated 179 towns and villages on the right bank of the Dnipro and 4,500 square kilometers of formerly Russian-occupied territories.
Observers say Russia’s retreat from Kherson represents a major setback for Moscow as it was the only regional capital it had captured since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine in February, the German news agency wrote.
At the humanitarian level, essential supplies have been delivered to thousands of people in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson for the first time since Russia’s invasion, UN humanitarians announced on Monday.
They said aid workers brought food, water, hygiene kits, shelter materials and critical household items, such as bedding, thermal blankets and solar lamps, to more than 6,000 people in the city.
Only 80,000 of the pre-war population of 280,000 remain.
More convoys are planned as the UN reported that the city is lacking electricity, water, food and medicine.
