Kirill Stremousov, Russia’s acting governor of the Kherson region, said Moscow’s troops in the area were “regrouping to get their strength together and strike back”, reported state newswire Ria Novosti.
The comments are the first time Russia has admitted retreating in the Kherson region, less than a week after Putin annexed it alongside three other Ukrainian provinces on Friday, September 30.
Backed with western weaponry against an outgunned, outnumbered Russian contingent, Ukraine has made steady advances in the south and east along the 1,000km front line as it vows to reclaim all the land now occupied by Russia.
Ukrainian troops were moving fast, aided by western-supplied night vision equipment and maps detailing live reconnaissance from drones, said a western diplomat.
They are repeating a military tactic that has worked well for them in the east, aiming to encircle Russian troops instead of facing them head-on right away.
In the Kherson region, the flat terrain has sped up the advance, and with the Dnipro river forming a natural barrier to the east.
Ukrainian forces have to push simultaneously only along two axes — from the north to the south, and from the west to the east.
As a result, Russian troops have had to fall back towards Kherson city, a prize that fell into their hands early in the full-blown invasion, and whose liberation has become a rallying cry for Zelenskyy.
But Ukrainian troops have far to travel; even the most optimistic updates place them about 100km from the city, where as many as 20,000 Russian troops are waiting.
Before they reach the outskirts of the city, they will have to battle for control of the Nova Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, where residents have described a strong Russian troop presence.
The dam controls the supply of water to a canal that supplies Crimea, the Ukrainian province forcibly annexed by Russia in 2014.
Using US-supplied precision missiles fired from HIMARS, Ukrainian troops have weakened a small bridge at the dam to blunt Russian efforts to resupply its military west of the river.
The Ukrainians have also weakened a major bridge near Kherson.
Ukraine has successfully hammered Russian forces into retreat on east and south fronts.
The Ukrainian counteroffensive, which had moved far more slowly in the south compared with the lightning push through the northeastern Kharkiv region in September, has suddenly picked up speed, with Russian units retreating in recent days from a large swath of territory along the west bank of the Dnieper River.
