The Russian Army Appears To Be Pulling Out Of Kherson

A city bus, rolling unimpeded past a military checkpoint in the Russian-occupied city of Kherson on or before Thursday, is a subtle but powerful symbol.

More than eight months after Russia widened its war on Ukraine, and seven months after Russian forces captured Kherson and its strategic port on the Black Sea, Russian troops appear to be leaving the southern city.

The liberation of Kherson, with its pre-war population of 300,000, could occur soon. Ukrainian brigades are maybe a dozen miles away.

As captured on a video that has circulated online, the Kherson city bus approaches a Russian army checkpoint. It seems the bus normally would slow or stop for a check. But there are no Russian troops at the checkpoint, so the bus just keeps on going—and the riders applaud.

The Ukrainian military spent many weeks preparing the battlefield around Kherson. The Ukrainians targeted Russian supply lines, blowing up depots and trains and striking bridges across the wide Dnipro River running just south of Kherson—bridges that trucks and trains use to move supplies into Kherson from Russian-occupied Crimea or Russia proper.

When Ukrainian brigades finally attacked in late August, Russian forces mostly crumbled. The Ukrainians quickly liberated hundreds of square miles of Kherson Oblast and closed in on the city itself.

It was evident weeks ago that the depleted Russian army—having lost as many as 100,000 men killed and wounded in Ukraine—could not hold all of Kherson Oblast. The main Russian force moved toward its main bridgeheads and barge landings and began redeploying to the left bank of the Dnipro.

Of course, one vacant checkpoint in a city that might have scores of them isn’t definitive proof that the city’s occupiers fully are evacuating. But there are other signs. Russian occupation officials relocating their headquarters. Russian flags disappearing from garrison facilities. Occupation forces destroying equipment they can’t take with them.

Most chillingly, the Russians are “overseeing the evacuation of civilian populations from certain settlements on the east bank of the Dnipro River,” according to the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for the Study of War. For the Russians, these civilians might be most useful as human shields in a pitched defense of the Dnipro’s left bank.

The Russians could leave Kherson without a fight, but there’s no guarantee they will. “I’m skeptical [Russia] will abandon all positions on that side without being forcibly pressed out, but could be wrong on this,” explained Michael Kofman, the director of Russia studies at the Virginia-based think tank CNA.

It’s worth noting that a covering force, reportedly bolstered by some of the 300,000 mostly middle-age and unfit draftees the Kremlin rounded up in September and October, has begun digging in on the right bank of the Dnipro.

These troops could slow Kherson’s liberation, buying time for the bulk of the Russian army to complete their escape across the Dnipro. But the covering force itself might not survive. “Such a detachment must be well-trained, professional and prepared to die for its compatriots,” Institute for the Study of War noted.

How quickly and forcefully the Ukrainian military pushes into Kherson could depend on several factors. The weather. Ukraine’s logistics. How much resistance the Russian rearguard puts up. And how much risk the Ukrainians are willing to tolerate—to themselves and to Kherson and its populace—as they free the city.