https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/11/10/world/ukraine-war-news-russia-updates
Ukrainian and U.S. Officials Urge Caution Over Russia’s Withdrawal From Kherson
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and U.S. officials expressed skepticism at Russia’s decision to order troops to retreat from the strategically important city of Kherson and said they would monitor movements in the coming days.
“There is a lot of joy in the media space today, and it is clear why,” Mr. Zelensky said in his overnight address late Wednesday. “But our emotions must be restrained,” he added. “The enemy does not bring us gifts.”
A retreat from the city of Kherson would be a major victory for Ukraine, which has long sought to recapture it and push Russian troops from the western bank of the Dnipro River. It is the only regional capital to fall to Russian forces since they invaded in February, and the withdrawal would be a humiliating rout for President Vladimir V. Putin.
Sergei K. Shoigu, Russia’s defense minister, announced the decision on Wednesday in a televised meeting with the military’s top brass. Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the commander for Russia’s forces in Ukraine, told Mr. Shoigu said that a withdrawal would “preserve lives of servicemen and combat readiness of forces.”
The reactions from Washington and Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, cautioned it was too soon to tell how widespread the withdrawal was and what Russia’s intentions were.
President Biden, during a news conference at the White House, said that the order “is evidence of the fact that they have some real problems, the Russian military.”
A Biden official, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said that in pulling back across the river, Russia was trying to preserve its forces — and their capability to fight another day.
Ukraine has warned that Russia might try to feign a retreat in hopes of drawing Ukraine into urban combat. The military had been tracking signs of a Russian retreat through Wednesday but was not convinced the Russian military intended to fully withdraw from Kherson City and the surrounding Russian bridgehead on the western bank of the Dnipro River, according to Roman Kostenko, a colonel in the army and chairman of the defense and intelligence committee in Ukraine’s Parliament.
By Wednesday evening, Ukrainian soldiers had entered some frontline villages that had been under Russian control before Moscow’s forces withdrew earlier in the day, Colonel Kostenko said in a telephone interview. Informants for the Ukrainian Army were reporting that Russian soldiers were leaving from towns and villages away from the front, he said.
Ukrainian intelligence agencies were working to assess Russia’s movements, he said, adding that the Russian announcement could be misdirection.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, was more circumspect and said the country was not relying on “staged TV statements” from the Russians. “Actions speak louder than words,” he wrote on Twitter. “We see no signs that Russia is leaving Kherson without a fight.”
