russian army began to retreat from Kherson region of Ukraineall that’s left is the latest humiliating pullout Pro-Kremlin military bloggers and propaganda are going crazy.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu issued the order Wednesday afternoon to withdraw across the Dnipro River.The move came after Russian forces reportedly started blow up the bridge The Russian flag has been removed from a building in the center of Kherson, making it the only provincial capital occupied by Russian forces. all-out invasion.
“For us, the life and health of military personnel will always be our top priority,” Shoigu said in announcing the decision.
Curiously, the order came after the Russian commander-in-chief in Ukraine, Sergei Slovikin, boasted that the Russian army had suffered only one-seventh the losses of the Ukrainian army at Kherson. It was
It also came just six weeks after Vladimir Putin taunted Kyiv, declaring that the inhabitants of Kherson and other occupied Ukrainian regions would “be our citizens forever.”
Pro-Kremlin bloggers had anticipated the withdrawal and opposed the decision as yet another “abandonment” by the Russian military.
But amid the humiliating withdrawal, Kremlin-controlled proxies announced Wednesday the sudden death of one of the most high-profile leaders in the occupied Kherson region.
Russia panics as civilians told to leave Kherson
The regional deputy director, Kirill Stremsov, is said to have died in a car accident. The Russian-appointed governor of the region, Vladimir Sardo, released the news on Telegram after it was first reported by Russian media.
Russian RIA Novosti Citing an unnamed source, Stremousov’s SUV was run over by a truck at an intersection. The truck driver is said to have made a “dangerous maneuver” that caused the wreck.
As soon as his death was announced, many pro-Kremlin military bloggers who were busy venting about Russia’s withdrawal from the “shocking” regions suddenly began writing condolences to Stremsov. .
Few details of the crash were initially released, and health officials in the region where the alleged Russian-backed accident occurred confirmed his death, only saying they could confirm there had been a road accident. Sardo said Stremsov was killed in the Kherson area, but some independent Russian media reported that he had taken refuge in Russia in late August. .
The ambiguous nature of his reported death and the speed at which numerous pro-Kremlin social media channels simultaneously posted their condolences have led some Ukrainian officials to suggest that the tragedy was a deliberate hoax. Yuri Sobolevsky, the first deputy chairman of the Kherson Regional Council, suggested in a Facebook statement that Stremsov’s death may have been “staged,” without giving details.
It’s not clear why he believed it was a hoax, but reports of Stremsov’s death came amid growing anger among Russian hardliners over the withdrawal from Kherson.
And as soon as his death was announced, they briefly moved from venting publicly about their military failures to writing tributes to Stremsov.
However, Shoigu’s announcement has rekindled the anger of Russian hardliners who have been fed up with the recent string of withdrawals.
“The point is not to win, but to participate,” one popular Russian military channel quipped to Telegram.
Pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergey Markov wrote, “The surrender of Kherson is Russia’s biggest geopolitical defeat since the collapse of the Soviet Union.” “The political impact of this crushing defeat will be enormous. [to carry out] A real war and a catastrophic delay in making the necessary decisions.”
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials expressed skepticism about the ordered withdrawal, with Natalya Gumenyuk, a spokesman for the Southern Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, calling the announcement a bid to “save face” and calling it “information It could be part of a “psychological operation,” he said. To “give a false impression of true intentions”.
Andriy Yermak, Chief of Staff to the President of Ukraine, appeared to share that sentiment, writing on Telegram:
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