Kyiv takes back settlements in south

Ukrainian troops have reclaimed dozens of landmine-littered settlements abandoned by Russian forces in southern Ukraine, officials said, the day after Moscow announced its withdrawal from the strategic capital city of Kherson province.

Ukraine warns of more attacks on infrastructure, as mayor urges Kyiv to prepare for the worst

Conflict

• Ukrainian forces have liberated 41 settlements as they advance through the south of the country, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

• Ukraine’s army chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said Kyiv could not yet confirm whether Russia was indeed pulling out of Kherson, but that Ukrainian troops had advanced 7 km (4 miles) in the past 24 hours.

• A small group of Ukrainian soldiers was shown on Ukraine’s state TV in the centre of the village of Snihurivka around 55 km north of Kherson city. They were greeted by dozens of residents in a square, with a Ukrainian flag fluttering from a pole behind them. Reuters verified the location of the video.

• Moscow ordered its troops to withdraw from the entire Russian-held pocket on the west bank of the Dnipro River, including Kherson city, the only regional capital Russia had captured in nine months of war. Ukraine’s defence minister said Russia has not started real movement from Kherson city and would take at least a week to withdraw.

• A senior adviser to Ukraine’s president said Russia wanted to turn Kherson into a “city of death”, and accused Moscow of mining everything from apartments to sewers and planning to shell the city from the other side of the River Dnipro.

• Ukrainian military said Russian forces were proceeding with offensive operations near Bakhmut and Avdiivka in the Donetsk region and near Novopavlivsk in the Mykolaiv region.

Diplomacy

• Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend a gathering of leaders from the Group of 20 (G20) nations in person next week but may join virtually, officials from Russia and the host country Indonesia said.

• US National security adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington was not pressuring Ukraine to engage in diplomacy with Russia over the war.

Economy & sanctions

• The British government said it had frozen assets together worth 18 billion pounds ($20.5 billion) held by Russian oligarchs, other individuals and entities sanctioned for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.