Street fighting erupts in battle to retake Kherson

Fierce fighting erupted yesterday in the city of Kherson as Ukraine launched a long-awaited counteroffensive to retake the region and a Moscow-appointed official fled across the border to Russia.

Heavy gunfire could be heard near the centre of the city, while social media video showed what was said to be the bombed-out headquarters of the Russian forces. The Ukrainian military said it had destroyed Russian weapons and equipment in warehouses.

Black smoke could be seen rising in the outskirts of Kherson after several loud explosions. Shots were also heard near a prison camp, according to Unian, the Ukrainian news agency.

President Zelensky warned Russian forces in the southern region to flee or surrender if they wanted to remain alive. “Go home,” he said. “If you are afraid to go home to Russia, then such occupiers should give themselves up.” He vowed that Kyiv’s forces would not stop until they had “liberated everything that belongs to Ukraine”.

Kherson, with a prewar population of 280,000, was the first significant Ukrainian city to fall after the Kremlin began its invasion in February. Its recapture would be one of Russia’s biggest setbacks since the start of the war and would fuel anger among hardliners in Moscow who believe that President Putin is too weak. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, insisted yesterday that Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine was going to plan.

It was unclear whether Ukrainian troops had entered Kherson or if the fighting in the city’s streets was between Russian forces and partisans loyal to Kyiv. Russia claimed to have repelled the attack and inflicted heavy casualties on the Ukrainian army. It also said that a group of “spies and saboteurs” had been killed during the fighting.

Oleksiy Arestovich, a senior adviser to Zelensky, said that Ukrainian forces had broken though Russian defences near Kherson. He also said that Ukraine was shelling ferries that the Russian army had used to supply its forces across the Dnipro river.

Ukraine hit three key bridges across the river with US-supplied Himars missiles earlier this summer in an effort to cut off Russian forces. Fresh strikes were reported yesterday on the 1,000-metre-long Antonivskyi Bridge across the Dnipro. In Britain, the Ministry of Defence said that while it was unable to confirm Kyiv’s advances, “Ukrainian long-range precision strikes continue to disrupt Russian resupply”.

Ukrainian troops have already recaptured four villages in the Kherson region, CNN reported, citing a military source. However, Arestovich cautioned against expectations of a quick victory, describing the counter-offensive as a “slow operation to grind down the enemy”. The Kremlin was planning to hold a “referendum” this autumn on incorporating the Kherson region into Russia, a tactic that it used when it annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-installed deputy leader of Kherson, fled to Russia shortly before the counter-offensive, it emerged yesterday after he posted videos from a five-star hotel in Voronezh, a city 120 miles from the Ukrainian border. Although Stremousov did not admit that he was in Voronezh, social media users recognised the city’s distinctive Annunciation Cathedral in the background of his videos. “Everything is under control,” he told Tass, the Russian state news agency.

As Ukraine tried to advance in Kherson, Russia launched missile strikes on the city of Kharkiv, just 20 miles from the border between the two countries. At least five people were killed and nine injured, local officials said. One of the missiles hit the city’s Sarzhyn Yar park where people were relaxing while another hit an empty nursery school.

Ukraine has accused Russia of deliberately shelling the route that a team from the United Nations nuclear watchdog is taking on a mission to the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky, said Russia was attempting to force the inspectors to travel through Russian-controlled territory in Crimea and the Donbas region. Zelensky warned last week that Europe was “one step away” from a radiation disaster when the plant was briefly disconnected from Ukraine’s power grid.

• The first shipment of grain from Ukraine to Africa since the war began arrived yesterday in Djibouti. The MV Brave Commander was carrying 23,000 tonnes of Ukrainian wheat for drought-stricken Ethiopia. The ship took two weeks to travel to Djibouti from southern Ukraine after a deal brokered by the UN and Turkey to let vessels through a Russian blockade in the Black Sea.