Ukraine invasion: Russian forces capture city of Kherson, a strategic gain for Moscow
- Strategic port city near the Black Sea is the first significant city to fall into Moscow’s hands
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Ukrainians to keep up the resistance
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Residents of Kherson awake to Russian tanks as Moscow claims to have seized strategic city
Russian forces have taken the Black Sea city of Kherson in southern Ukraine, a significant victory for Moscow after a string of military setbacks.
The battlefield gain, confirmed by local Ukrainian officials late Wednesday, came as Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv continued to come under severe Russian shelling, prompting comparisons to the massacres of civilians in Sarajevo in the 1990s.
Russian forces also reportedly surrounded Mariupol, a strategic port on the Sea of Azov, as the invasion entered its eighth day on Thursday. Another key Ukrainian port, Berdiansk, has already been seized by Russian troops.
However, the huge armoured column threatening the capital Kyiv appeared stalled outside the capital, according to US officials.
Moscow’s isolation deepened, meanwhile, when most of the world lined up against it at the United Nations to demand it withdraw from Ukraine. And the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court opened an investigation into possible war crimes.
Russia reported its military casualties for the first time since the invasion began last week, saying nearly 500 of its troops have been killed and almost 1,600 wounded.