Russia’s armed forces are retreating from the front lines in southern Ukraine after losing significant swaths of territory in recent days, a Moscow-appointed official has said.
Kirill Stremousov, appointed on Tuesday by President Vladimir Putin as Russia’s acting governor of the Kherson region, said Russia’s troops in the area were “regrouping to get their strength together and strike back”, state newswire Ria Novosti reported on Wednesday.
The comments are the first time Russia has admitted retreating in Kherson region less than a week after Putin annexed it alongside three other Ukrainian provinces on Friday.
Russia does not control any of the four territories in full and has lost ground in all of them since the annexation. It is yet to say how much of Kherson and neighbouring Zaporizhzhia regions it is annexing.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late on Tuesday that “the Ukrainian army is making quite fast and powerful movements in the south of our country”, particularly in Kherson, where Russian forces have retreated at least 30km behind the previous front line.
