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Russia said Wednesday it was withdrawing troops from the Ukrainian city of Kherson and some of the surrounding area, a major blow for Russian President Vladimir Putin in his eight-month war against the Eastern European country.
The announcement came from Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who said that the withdrawal decision was made with the recommendation of General Sergei Surovikin, the commander of Russia's forces in Ukraine. In relinquishing Kherson, Russian troops will retreat from the city to the eastern bank of the Dnipro River. It was not immediately clear if the order has already been fully carried out.
"The decision to defend on the left bank of the Dnipro is not easy, but at the same time we will save the lives of our military personnel and the combat capability of our forces," Surovikin said in televised remarks Wednesday, according to The Washington Post.
Kherson was the only regional capital Russia had managed to capture in the Ukraine war, seizing the city just days after Putin launched his invasion on February 24. The loss of Kherson is especially significant because it is located in the Kherson Oblast, one of four Ukrainian regions that Russia declared would be annexed in late September.
In the annexation, Kherson was declared to be a part of Russia forever, "and it wasn't even a part of Russia for two months," William Pomeranz, director of the Wilson Center's Russia- and Eurasia-focused Kennan Institute, told Newsweek.
Ukraine and Western leaders have repeatedly decried the annexation as illegal and illegitimate, and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in late September that the development would change "nothing" for Ukraine and the world. Kherson is one of several fronts where Ukraine continued to conduct a counteroffensive to reclaim land seized by Russia following the proclaimed annexation.
Pomeranz said that giving up territory in Kherson technically violates a constitutional amendment that Russia adopted in 2020, which bans the relinquishing of any Russian territory.
"Putin has backtracked and has indeed now presided over the giving away of territory, the alienation of territory back to Ukraine," Pomeranz said.
He said he believes that this is a "very serious defeat" for the Russian president and that the withdrawal is "one of the few admissions by the Russian states that the war is not going well."
William Courtney, an adjunct senior fellow at the Rand Corp. think tank, told Newsweek that it will be a "significant political blow" to Russia if Ukraine manages to capture a large number of Russian forces, such as 1,000 to 2,000 troops, amid the withdrawal. Overall, the shock of losing Kherson would be as great as, or even greater than, the sinking of the Moskva, Russia's Black Sea Fleet flagship, in April.
Ukraine said that it used missile strikes to down the ship, which was estimated to be worth $750 million, though Russia said that an onboard fire and detonated ammunition caused it to sink.
Courtney said that he believes losing the Moskva is the only single event in the war that could be comparable to losing Kherson in terms of the shock for Russia.
The only way that Russia might be able to ease the political blow of losing Kherson would be to withdraw in a way that prevents Ukraine from capturing many of its personnel, Courtney said.
"But the Russians have already committed the major blunder, which is to annex territory, a region capital, which it's going to lose," he said.
Newsweek reached out to the Kremlin for comment.
About the writer
Zoe Strozewski is a Newsweek reporter based in New Jersey. Her focus is reporting on U.S. and global politics. Zoe ... Read more