Ukraine war: Tears of relief and joy in Kherson as oppressed Ukrainians cling to their liberators
With the magnitude of the moment still sinking in, a girl in a red coat ignores several cars and runs through traffic to throw her arms around a Ukrainian soldier.
It is a scene of celebration that is being repeated across Kherson, now liberated from Russian control.
Everyone in a uniform is being given a hero’s welcome – liberation clearly feels good and they are holding on to it tight.
This plays out as Ukraine‘s national anthem banned under Russian occupation blares across the central square.
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A woman, who tells me her name is Babushka Alla, is overjoyed – and wants to thank the armed forces.
“We are so happy that our strong men returned to us and liberated us from the occupiers!”
The people here have lived under nine months of terrifying occupation.
With this in mind, it is easy to understand why they are weeping tears of relief and joy and clinging to their liberators.
I meet Natalia, who’s holding back the tears.
“We knew only fear. We were afraid of everything. We were afraid of the sounds of cars, we were afraid of using telephones, we were hiding everything, we were hiding our kids!”
The celebrations are infectious. People dance and throw their arms in the air.
Everyone waves a flag and some even surf around the city on the top of cars shouting, “Glory to Ukraine, Glory to the heroes”.
Many here feared this time would never come.
And now they are cherishing it. It’s a rare moment of good news in a war that has caused so much pain.
And it is perhaps a reflection of the strength of the residents who carried on as a kind of normal.
Some shops are open and there are some cars on the street. But the smashed-up buildings and the dark secrets they contain are hard to forget.
Members of Russia’s internal security the FSB were based in a hotel in the centre of the city before it was hit by a Ukrainian artillery strike.
From there they enforced Moscow’s rule of oppression.
Olga, who arrived outside the building, is demanding justice. She says many people in the city simply disappeared.
“They went for water – and they were gone! They went to the market – gone! They went for medicines – gone! A lot of people have disappeared”.
Surviving under occupation was a life lived in fear. And although freedom is a powerful currency, basic services remain cut.
There’s no power and there are queues everywhere for water. People waiting patiently in line holding empty plastic bottles.
The Russians spent their time here talking of a new motherland. The posters for the sham referendum still hang heavy over the city.
But Vladimir Putin’s illegal annexation and his claim Kherson is Russia’s forever means nothing when the people here have a different idea of who they want to be.
And that is obvious as most of the city’s population are draped in a Ukrainian flag, or are holding one.
The truth is Moscow’s forces built nothing and they destroyed much. The TV tower is a twisted skeleton of scorched metal.
The Russians blew it up as they left, cutting the telephone and the internet, a goodbye gift from a humiliated and defeated army.
The Russians may have retreated but they haven’t gone far.
They’re now just 2km away on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River – smoke billows on the horizon as explosions are heard in the distance.
It’s a sobering reminder that this war is far from over.
For now though for the people it’s all about reconnecting with the outside world.
Back in the central square soldiers have set up satellite internet so people can tell their loved ones they are OK.
Staring at their phones everyone tries to catch enough signal to get a message out. But amid this jubilation and relief, there are moments of reflection.
In fluent English, Andrii describes to me what the last nine months have been like.
“Feels like freedom at last. Feels like victory is coming here. From the very first day, I knew it was coming. You have to have something which you live for and this was the moment to live for. Great day. Liberation is not something happening every year. It’s something once in every five generations. It’s a moment to stay.”
There’s anger here too at what Russia has done to Ukraine.
As we leave the centre of the city we see a group of young people tearing down posters put up by the Russian invaders.
And with the Kremlin’s forces in retreat here they start to chant loudly, willing their military to free the rest of the country.
At least 34 people – including two children – have been killed after a Russian missile attack on a Ukrainian city.
The country’s state emergency service said another 117 people have been injured, with 15 children among them, in the northeastern city of Sumy.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry later added that one of the children injured was a baby girl born this year, saying “even newborns are targets for Russia’s crimes”.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy also shared videos on Telegram of the aftermath of the attack on social media, showing dead bodies in the middle of a city street near a destroyed bus.
As it happened: Russian attack is ‘signal’ to US and Ukraine
Two children were killed in the strike. Pic: State Emergency Service of Ukraine
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The Ukrainian president said on social media “only scoundrels can act like this” and that “tough reaction from the world is needed”.
“Russia wants exactly this kind of terror and is dragging out this war,” he added. “Without pressure on the aggressor, peace is impossible.
“Talks have never stopped ballistic missiles and air bombs. We need the kind of attitude towards Russia that a terrorist deserves.”
Andriy Kovalenko, a security official who runs Ukraine’s centre for countering disinformation, noted the strike came after a visit to Moscow by US envoy Steve Witkoff.
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From Saturday: Putin meets Trump envoy for talks
US official: ‘This is wrong’
Keith Kellogg, Donald Trump‘s envoy for the Ukraine war, said the attack crosses “any line of decency” and that “there are scores of civilian dead and wounded”.
He added: “As a former military leader, I understand targeting and this is wrong. It is why President Trump is working hard to end this war.”
In response to Mr Kellogg, Mr Zelenskyy’s communications adviser, Dmytro Lytvynm asked: “Don’t you think it’s time to smack the Moscow mule across the nose with a 2X4?”.
Later, US secretary of state Marco Rubio said the strike was “horrifying” and a “tragic reminder of why President Trump and his Administration are putting so much time and effort into trying to end this war and achieve durable peace”.
Pic: AP
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy added he was “horrified” by Russia’s “barbaric strike” on Sumy, and called for an “immediate ceasefire”.
Meanwhile, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said “cruelty struck again” and called the strike a “blatant violation of international law”.
It came hours before a separate Russian strike killed three people in the central district of the southern city of Kherson.
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The local governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said a 68-year-old woman was injured and died in hospital and that a 48-year-old man also died after “the occupiers dropped an explosive device from a drone”.
A 62-year-old woman was also killed “as a result of the shelling”.
On Saturday, a Russian guided bomb hit a house in the northeastern Ukrainian town of Kupiansk on Saturday, injuring four people.
Governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram that three others could be trapped under rubble.
It comes after Russian diplomats accused each other of violating a tentative US-brokered deal to pause strikes on energy infrastructure.
“The Ukrainians have been attacking us from the very beginning, every passing day, maybe with two or three exceptions,” Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said, adding that Moscow would provide a list of Kyiv’s attacks from the past three weeks.
Andrii Sybiha, his Ukrainian counterpart, dismissed the claim saying on Saturday that Russia launched “almost 70 missiles, over 2,200 [exploding] drones, and over 6,000 guided aerial bombs at Ukraine, mostly at civilians” since agreeing to the limited pause on strikes.
He may not be the one to sit down with Vladimir Putin, but Keith Kellogg, President Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, summed up the horror of Sunday’s ballistic missile strikes on Sumy succinctly.
“Today’s Palm Sunday attack by Russian forces on civilian targets in Sumy crosses any line of decency,” he said.
“As a former military leader, I understand targeting and this is wrong.”
Ukraine war latest: At least 34 people killed
Vladimir Putin gave up on decency long before he started this war.
What he seems to be risking by attacks of this scale is Donald Trump‘s patience.
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Russia launches strike on Ukraine
He does not seem to mind if strikes like this make a mockery of US attempts to bring the two warring parties to the table.
He does not seem to care if he alienates his US counterpart, who has been strangely predisposed to fawn over him to date.
Perhaps he is raising the stakes as high as he can to illustrate his strength of hand: Strikes on civilians damage Ukrainian morale – even if they are hardly battlefield wins – and on the battlefield, he is pushing ahead and does not want to stop.
At least 34 people, including two children, were killed in Sumy on Sunday. Pic: Reuters
Perhaps he knows that if he keeps up his military momentum, President Trump will tire of a conflict he realises he cannot solve and let the matter slip while staying true to his MAGA-economic priorities by letting funds for Ukraine dry up.
Perhaps he thinks President Trump is so keen on a rapprochement with Russia, on the big Putin-Trump bilateral, that the details, the civilian deaths along the way, will all be by-the-by when that long-sought photo-op finally happens.
Whatever it is, President Putin seems to be in no rush to get things settled.
His spokesman told a Russian state reporter on Sunday that talks were under way at several levels but that “of course, it is impossible to expect any instant results”.
Withdrawing his troops would get instant results. But that is not what Vladimir Putin wants.
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His war economy is working for him, and he has the attention of the one country he considers a worthy adversary, the United States.
In the meantime, this attack reinforces why President Zelenskyy’s plea for air defence systems is his top priority. And why a ceasefire cannot come soon enough.
An Israeli air strike has hit a hospital in Gaza City, with pictures showing the devastating aftermath at some of its wards.
The al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital was hit by multiple missiles, the Hamas-run health ministry said, adding hundreds of patients, medical personnel, and their companions were on site at the time of the attack.
It said the Israeli army had targeted what it described as “one of the oldest and most vital healthcare institutions operating in the Gaza Strip”.
One patient died during the evacuation as medical staff were unable to provide urgent care, it said.
No other casualties have been reported.
Pic: AP
The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said they “struck a command and control centre used by Hamas” in the hospital.
“The compound was used by Hamas terrorists to plan and execute terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops,” they said in a statemement.
“Prior to the strike, steps were taken to mitigate harm to civilians or to the hospital compound, including issuing advanced warnings in the area of the terror infrastructure, the use of precise munitions, and aerial surveillance.
“The Hamas terrorist organisation systematically violates international law while using civilian infrastructure, brutally exploiting the civilian population as a human shield for its terrorist activities.”
The health facility’s director, Dr Fadel Naim, said they were warned of the attack beforehand.
A closer look at what was the hospital’s outpatient and laboratory wards. Pic: AP
Pic: AP
Hamas has denied using hospitals for military purposes throughout the war and has accused Israel of intentionally targeting its medical infrastructure in its ongoing offensive.
The latest strikes come after Israel ended its ceasefire with Hamas and restarted its air and ground offensive.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has also imposed a month-long blockade on food, fuel and humanitarian aid – a tactic that rights groups say is a war crime.
Israel reconstructs Morag corridor
The Morag Corridor under construction. Pic: IDF
On Saturday, Israel said it had completed the construction of a new security corridor that cuts off the southern city of Rafah from the rest of Gaza.
The security corridor was referred to by Israeli officials as the Morag Axis, a reference to a former Israeli settlement previously located in an area between the two southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis.
The prime minister said the move gives Israel control of a second axis in southern Gaza in addition to the Philadelphi Corridor, running along the border with Egypt, which Israel sees as a key line stopping weapons being smuggled into Gaza.
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Israeli forces encircle Rafah
Israel has also gained control of the Netzarim Corridor, which cuts off the northern third of Gaza from the rest of the territory.
Morag’s construction is part of Israel’s pledge to seize large parts of Gaza to pressure Hamas to release remaining hostages and accept proposed ceasefire terms, and it further squeezes Palestinians into shrinking areas of land.
In a statement on Saturday, Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz said his country’s military would soon expand “rapidly” throughout most of Gaza and that Palestinians would “have to evacuate the fighting zones”.
He did not say where Palestinians were supposed to go.
The war between Israel and Hamas began when Hamas-led militants invaded Israel on 7 October 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.
Some 59 hostages are still being held in Gaza, with 24 still believed to be alive.
The ensuing Israeli offensive has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
It does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count, but has previously said more than half of those killed in the conflict are women and children.
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