Russia orders the abandonment of Kherson in embarrassing defeat for Putin

RUSSIAN Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on Wednesday (November 9) ordered his troops to withdraw from the occupied Ukrainian city of Kherson and take up defensive lines on the opposite bank of the River Dnipro. The announcement marked one of Russia’s most significant retreats and a potential turning point in what Moscow calls its “special military operation“, now nearing the end of its ninth month. In televised comments, General Sergei Surovikin, in overall command of the war, reported to Shoigu that it was no longer possible to keep Kherson city supplied. The news followed weeks of Ukrainian advances towards the city and a race by Russia to relocate more than 100,000 of its residents by ferrying them to the opposite side of the river. Kherson is the main city of the region of the same name - one of four Ukrainian regions which President Vladimir Putin proclaimed in September he was incorporating into Russia “forever,“ and which the Kremlin said had now been