Russia-Ukraine war – as it happened: Moscow declares new ‘temporary capital’ for Kherson region after Ukraine retakes city

 Russia-Ukraine war – as it happened: Moscow declares new ‘temporary capital’ for Kherson region after Ukraine retakes city

Russian state news agency says Henichesk declared temporary administrative capital after Kherson city taken by Ukraine

Zelenskiy hails ‘historic day’ as Ukrainian forces enter Kherson – video

Nadeem Badshah (now); Martin Belam and Christine Kearney (earlier)

Sat 12 Nov 2022 19.38 GMT

From 11h ago

09.18 GMT

Henichesk declared new 'temporary administrative capital' of occupied Kherson

The state-owned Russian news agency Tass is reporting that Alexander Fomin, one of the members of the Russian-imposed administration in occupied Kherson oblast, has said Henichesk has been declared the temporary administrative capital of Kherson. The region is one of the areas that the Russian Federation has claimed to have annexed.

He said: “All the main authorities are concentrated there.”

Henichesk, a port city on the sea of Azov, has been occupied since 27 February. It is very close to the border with the Crimea region, but a significant distance from Kherson city and the Dnipro River.

Updated at 09.24 GMT

1h ago

19.27 GMT

A summary of today's developments

Ukraine is carrying out “stabilisation measures” near the city of Kherson after it was retaken by Ukrainian forces. Earlier, people across the country had awoken on Saturday from a night of jubilant celebrations following what has been described as a “historic day” for Kyiv and perhaps the most important strategic breakthrough since the beginning of the Russian invasion.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Kyiv’s forces have established control in over 60 settlements in the Kherson region and that stabilisation measures are being carried out in Kherson. He added that Russian forces have destroyed all Kherson’s critical infrastructure before they fled including communications, water supplies along with heat and electricity supplies.

After an eight-month occupation, hundreds of citizens flooded the streets on Saturday morning, reaching out to greet and embrace Ukrainian soldiers and the first foreign journalists on the scene. However, Zelenskiy cautioned that while special military units had reached Kherson city, a full deployment to reinforce the advance troops was still under way – a reminder that about 70% of the Kherson region remains under Russian control.

Zelenskiy declared the city to be “ours” and that it was a “historic” day for the country, after Russia announced the completion of its withdrawal from the regional capital. In a statement on his Telegram page, he said people in Kherson never gave up hope on Ukraine, adding: “Hope for Ukraine is always justified – and Ukraine always returns its own.”

A Ukrainian defence ministry spokesperson has told the BBC that Ukraine’s forces are almost in full control of Kherson.

Russia said more than 30,000 service personnel had been withdrawn to the eastern bank of the Dnipro River. The defence ministry said its evacuation had been completed by 5am Moscow time on Friday. The ministry said there was no military hardware or soldiers left on the western side of the river.

However, reports have emerged of some Russian troops being left behind in Ukraine and changing into civilian clothes, or drowning trying to escape. The Ukrainian ministry of defence’s intelligence unit has urged Russian soldiers to surrender.

The Antonivskiy Bridge, the only nearby road crossing from the city of Kherson to the Russian-controlled eastern bank of the Dnipro River, has been blown up. There was significant new damage to the nearby major Nova Kakhovka dam after the withdrawal, and footage emerged of explosions at the location.

Alexander Fomin, one of the members of the Russian-imposed administration in occupied Kherson oblast, has said Henichesk has been declared the temporary administrative capital of Kherson. The region is one of the areas that the Russian Federation has claimed to have annexed. He said: “All the main authorities are concentrated there.”

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, and the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, met at the Asean summit in Cambodia. “There were very few who believed that Ukraine would survive,” Kuleba said. “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.

Britain said Russia’s withdrawal from the only regional capital in Ukraine that it had captured since its invasion began in February was another humiliation for its army, but that Moscow continued to pose a threat. “Russia’s announced withdrawal from Kherson marks another strategic failure for them,” the British defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said in a statement on Saturday. “In February, Russia failed to take any of its major objectives except Kherson. Now, with that also being surrendered, ordinary people of Russia must surely ask themselves: ‘What was it all for?’” Wallace said.

Russia has restated its insistence on unhindered access to world markets for its food and fertiliser exports after what it called a “thorough exchange of views” with UN officials on Friday in Geneva.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Vershinin, has been quoted by the state news agency Tass as saying talks with UN officials had been useful and detailed but the issue of renewing the Black Sea grain export deal – which expires in one week – had yet to be resolved. Vershinin was quoted as saying that restoring access to the Swift payments system for the agricultural lender Rosselkhozbank was a key issue.

Turkey is committed to seeking a peace dialogue between Russia and Ukraine, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Saturday, according to Turkish media. “We are working on how to create a peace corridor here, like we had the grain corridor,” Erdoğan was quoted as telling reporters on a flight from Uzbekistan. The president said he would not be proposing a specific timeframe for any extension of the grain corridor deal, but said he wants it to run “as long as possible”.

The Russian state-owned news agency Tass is reporting that Russia has banned the passage of ships loaded outside the Russian Federation through the Kerch Strait to the Sea of ​​Azov.

Russian oligarchs and executives from multiple companies under international sanctions are among the lobbyists attending Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh.

The British graffiti-artist Banksy unveiled his latest work, on a Ukrainian building damaged by Russian bombing. The anonymous artist from Bristol, whose work sells for millions of pounds, posted a picture on Instagram of the artwork, a gymnast doing a handstand amid debris in Borodianka, a town north of the capital, Kyiv, which was pummelled by Russian bombs and then occupied.

Updated at 19.37 GMT

1h ago

19.06 GMT

Zelenskiy added that Ukraine was able to conduct successful operations in Kherson and elsewhere in part because of resistance in the Donetsk region in the face of repeated Russian attacks.

“There it is just hell – there are extremely fierce battles there every day,” he said.

“But our units are defending bravely – they are withstanding the terrible pressure of the invaders, preserving our defence lines.”

Updated at 19.38 GMT

The Guardian