Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy declared that Kherson is "ours” after his special forces entered the strategic southern city following the retreat of Russian troops, marking another dramatic battlefield victory in Kyiv’s drive to recapture territory occupied by Russia since the start of its unprovoked invasion.
The Ukrainian military also said on November 11 that its troops had advanced all the way to the western bank of the Dnieper River in some areas of the Kherson region as Moscow said its forces had completed their withdrawal to the eastern bank in the face of Ukraine’s powerful counteroffensive.
"Our people -- Ours. Kherson," Zelenskiy wrote in a Telegram post that also included what appeared to be a video of Ukrainian troops celebrating with local residents.
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“Today is a historic day,” Zelenskiy said in the post. “We are returning Kherson. As of now, our defenders are on the approaches to the city. But special units are already in the city.”
Various videos on social media from Kherson showed resident cheering and waving flags as the first Ukrainian troops reached the center of the city, the only provincial capital captured by Russian forces following their February 24 invasion.
"Kherson is returning to the control of Ukraine," the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said earlier in the day. "Units of the armed forces of Ukraine are entering the city."
WATCH: Local residents welcomed Ukrainian soldiers into Snihurivka on November 10, as advance forces of the Ukrainian military recaptured the town in the southern Mykolayiv region. Other footage from the village of Blahodatne in the Kherson region shows a massive cache of abandoned weapons left by the Russian troops after their retreat.
"The Russian occupiers' routes of retreat are under the direct fire of the Ukrainian Army," the statement added. "Any Russian soldier who resists will be killed."
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a tweet that "Ukraine is gaining another important victory right now and proves that whatever Russia says or does, Ukraine will win." The tweet included a video purporting to show Kherson residents removing a billboard that proclaimed "Russia is here forever."
Serhiy Khlan, a deputy for the Kherson Regional Council, said a Ukrainian flag had been raised in Kherson, as multiple videos circulating on social media purportedly showed Ukrainian soldiers planting their yellow-and-blue flag on administrative buildings in the city and local residents celebrating.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it had finished the pullout from Kherson city and the region at 5 a.m. on November 11 and that no military equipment had been left behind, in an another embarrassing blow to Moscow's war effort, which it refers to as a "special military operation."
"In total, more than 30,000 Russian servicemen, about 5,000 pieces of hardware, and military equipment and materiel have been withdrawn," the ministry said. "Not a single piece of military equipment or weaponry was left on the right (western) bank," he added, although the report could not immediately be confirmed.
Khlan said some Russian soldiers had been unable to leave the city and had changed into civilian clothing and urged local residents to stay at home while Ukrainian troops cleared the city.
"The number of these people is not known," he told a news briefing, without citing evidence for the claim.
Khlan also said, without citing evidence, that many Russian troops had drowned attempting to flee across the river.
The head of the joint coordination press center of the Defense Forces of Southern Ukraine, Natalya Humenyuk, said Russian troops "have been changing into civilian clothes for two weeks."
"This should focus our forces as it means saboteur operations cannot be ruled out," Humenyuk told a separate briefing.
"Because of this, we are not rushing to announce our successes in other directions and in other towns."
Russia did not immediately comment on Khlan's or Humenyuk's remarks.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on November 10 that it would take Russia at least a week to withdraw, telling Reuters in an interview that Russia had 40,000 troops in the Kherson region and that it still had forces in the city.
Kherson controls both the only land route to Ukraine's Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula and the mouth of the Dnieper, which bisects Ukraine.
Recapturing the city could provide Ukraine with a launching pad for supplies and troops to try to win back other lost territory in the south.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's public broadcaster quoted local residents as saying on November 11 that the Antonivskiy Bridge, the only nearby road crossing from Kherson city to the Russian-controlled eastern bank of the Dnieper, had collapsed.
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The Suspilne broadcaster published a photograph showing whole sections of the bridge missing. The next road crossing across the Dnieper is more than 70 kilometers from Kherson city.
It was not immediately clear what had caused the collapse.
The Ukrainian General Staff said retreating Russian forces have been looting homes and destroying critical infrastructure, while forcibly evicting residents from the settlements still under their control.
"The Russian invaders continue to loot the settlements from which they are retreating. The enemy is also attempting to damage power lines and other elements of the transport and critical infrastructure of the Kherson region as much as possible," the military said, adding that Russian mines continue to wound civilians.
Elsewhere, six civilians were killed in a Russian rocket attack on Mykolayiv overnight, the mayor of the southern Ukrainian city said on November 11, as Ukrainian troops continued their advance in the direction of Kherson.
The mayor of Mykolayiv, Oleksandr Sienkovych, said on November 11 that the people were killed when Russian rockets hit a residential area of the city, destroying a five-story building.
"As of 10 a.m., six people were killed by the impact of the attack on the residential building," Sienkovych said.
Fierce fighting continues in Bakhmut and Soledar in the eastern Donetsk region as well as in the adjacent Luhansk region, the military said, adding that heavy Russian shelling pounded about 20 settlements in the Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, and Mykolayiv regions.
In his nightly address late on November 10, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said: "Today we have good news from the south. The number of Ukrainian flags returning to their rightful place within the framework of the ongoing defense operation is already dozens.”
He added that 41 settlements had been liberated.
