The areas west of the Dnipro served as a strategic bridgehead. Now they are being abandoned – it is another setback for the Kremlin. But the task of Cherson also shows that Russia has learned from past mistakes.
The villages around Cherson – here Arkanhelske – have been fiercely fought over in recent weeks. Now the Russian troops are withdrawing.
If there is bad news to announce, Putin usually puts others forward. On Wednesday, it was Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s turn to break the bad news: in a televised military briefing, he ordered all troops in the Kherson region to be withdrawn from the west bank of the Dnipro River. With that, Russia is also giving up the strategically and symbolically important city of Cherson – the only Ukrainian provincial capital that Moscow has been able to bring under its control since February.