Russia captured the city of Kherson on 2 March 2022. Kherson was the first major Ukrainian city to fall during the invasion, and the only regional capital that Russia managed to capture in the 2022 invasion, though the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk had been controlled by Russian-backed separatists since 2014. Most of the rest of Kherson Oblast fell to Russian forces in the early months of the invasion.[3]
Russia laid the groundwork for annexation in the following months by introducing the Russian ruble as official currency and forcibly removing the hryvnia from circulation.[4] After holding staged referendums in September 2022,[5] Russia declared that it had annexed Kherson Oblast on 30 September, including parts of the oblast that it did not control at the time and small occupied areas of neighboring Mykolaiv Oblast.[lower-alpha 5][6][7] The United Nations condemned the annexations as violating international law.
In October 2022, as Ukraine's 2022 Kherson counteroffensive approached the city of Kherson itself, the Russian administration's executive bodies evacuated from Kherson to the left bank of the Dnieper River.[8] They set up a new administrative centre in Henichesk, in the far south of the Kherson region.[9] Throughout early November 2022, Russian forces fully withdrew from all the areas of Kherson and Mykolaiv regions on the right bank of the Dnieper, including the city of Kherson proper.[10][11] Ukrainian forces entered the city of Kherson on 11 November. Russia continues to assert its claim to the entire oblast.[12]
During the 2014 occupation of Crimea, Russian forces also occupied a gas distribution centre at the town of Strilkove on the Arabat spit in Kherson Oblast, from 15 March.[13][14] In December 2014, they left territories of Kherson, including the area of Strilkove, the Ad peninsula[uk], and the village of Chonhar.[15]
Shortly after Kherson was captured, the Russian Ministry of Defence said talks between Russian forces and city administrators regarding the maintenance of order were underway. An agreement was reached in which the Ukrainian flag would still be hoisted in the city while Russia established the new administration. Mayor Ihor Kolykhaiev announced new conditions for the city's residents: citizens could only go outside during daytime and were forbidden to gather in groups. Additionally, cars were only allowed to enter the city to supply food and medicine; these vehicles were to drive at minimum speeds and were subject to searches. Citizens were warned not to provoke Russian soldiers and obey any commands given.[23]
In the first days of the invasion, Russian forces established control over and unblocked the North Crimean Canal, effectively rescinding a longstanding water blockage imposed on Crimea by Ukraine after the 2014 Russian annexation of the peninsula.[24]
On 5 March, Kolykhaiev said that there was no armed resistance in the city and Russian troops were "quite settled". He requested humanitarian aid, stating that the city lacked power, water, and medicine.[25] Later that day, around 2,000 protesters marched in the city center. The protesters waved Ukrainian flags, sang the national anthem, and chanted patriotic slogans. A video showed Russian soldiers firing into the air to dissuade the protestors. There were also claims that the Russian force had a list of Ukrainian activists in the city that they wanted to capture.[26] On 9 March, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces stated that Russia had detained more than 400 people in Kherson due to ongoing protests.[27]
Russian military personnel at an aid distribution center in the village of Chornobaivka
On 12 March, Ukrainian officials claimed that Russia was planning to stage a referendum in Kherson to establish the Kherson People's Republic, similar to the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic. Serhiy Khlan[uk], deputy leader of the Kherson Oblast Council, claimed that the Russian military had called all the members of the council and asked them to cooperate.[28]Lyudmyla Denisova, Ombudsman of Ukraine, stated that the referendum would be illegal because "under Ukrainian law any issues over territory can only be resolved by a nationwide referendum".[29] Later that day, the Kherson Oblast Council passed a resolution stating that the proposed referendum would be illegal.[30]
On 13 March, Ukrayinska Pravda, a Ukrainian newspaper, reported that several thousand people in Kherson took part in a protest.[31] Russian soldiers dispersed the protest with gunfire, stun grenades, and rubber bullets, injuring several people.[32][33]
On 22 March, the Ukrainian government warned Kherson was facing a "humanitarian catastrophe" as the city was running out of food and medical supplies and accused Russia of blocking evacuation of civilians to Ukraine-controlled territory.[34][35] Russia countered by saying that its military helped deliver aid to the city's population.[36] A local journalist stated that there was only a staged event, in which former prisoners from Crimea were brought in to act as locals welcoming the Russians and accepting their assistance.[37] According to several media outlets, residents report intrusive checkpoints, abductions, and Russian looting of shops.[38][39]
By 26 April, Russian troops took over Kherson City's administration headquarters and appointed a new mayor,[45] former KGB agent Oleksandr Kobets, and a new civilian-military regional administrator, ex-mayor Vladimir Saldo.[46] The next day, Ukraine's Prosecutor General said that troops used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse a pro-Ukraine protest in the city centre.[45]
On 27 April, the Legislative Assembly of Krasnoyarsk Krai in Siberia approved the expropriation of grain from the Kherson region. Agricultural machinery from the occupied Kherson region was also transported to remote Russian lands, including Chechnya.[47]Lyudmila Denisova, the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, likened the plan to repeating the Holodomor, a famine in Soviet Ukraine in 1932–1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians.[48] The plan was eventually put into action on 30 May, according to Russia. Russian officials were also working on exporting sunflower seeds.[49] According to locals, Russian soldiers were being employed as strawberry pickers in Kherson Oblast.[50]
In an indication of an intended split from Ukraine, on 28 April the new military-civilian administration announced that from May it would switch the region's currency to the Russian ruble. Additionally, citing unnamed reports that alleged discrimination against Russian speakers, its deputy head, Kirill Stremousov said that "reintegrating the Kherson region back into a Nazi Ukraine is out of the question".[52] On 29 April, Saldo stated that the official languages of the Kherson Oblast would be both Ukrainian and Russian and that the International Settlements Bank from South Ossetia would open 200 branches in Kherson Oblast soon.[53] On 1 May, a four-month plan was adopted for a full transition to rubles. At the same time, the Ukrainian hryvnia was to remain the current currency along with the ruble for four months.[54] On 7 May, a new coat of arms was adopted, based on the 1803 coat of arms of Kherson of the Russian Empire.[55][56][57]
On 11 May 2022, Kirill Stremousov announced his readiness to send President Vladimir Putin a request for Kherson Oblast to directly join the Russian Federation without any referendum or creation of an independent "Kherson People's Republic" prior to joining.[59] Commenting on these statements, Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that this issue should be decided by the inhabitants of the region and that "these fateful decisions must have an absolutely clear legal background, legal justification, be absolutely legitimate, as was the case with Crimea".[60]
On 3 June, the EU stated that it would not recognize any Russian passports issued to Ukrainian citizens in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.[61] On 11 June, according to local officials, the first Russian passports were handed out to citizens in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Region, including local officials such as Vladimir Saldo.[62][63]
Annexation by Russia and Ukrainian recapture of Kherson City
Vladimir Putin celebrating the annexations with Russian-installed leaders of the occupied regions on 30 September 2022
On 10 July, Iryna Vereshchuk, the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine urged civilians in the Kherson region to evacuate ahead of a future Ukrainian counteroffensive.[64] On 27 July 2022 the surface of a section of the Antonivka Road Bridge was rendered unusable for heavy equipment,[65] by M142 HIMARS attacks.[66] The counteroffensive eventually was announced to have began on 29 August 2022.[67] They regained territory and liberated villages in northern Kherson Oblast and southern Mykolaiv Oblast gradually throughout September.[68][69][70]
On 30 September 2022, Russia declared it was annexing four Ukrainian oblasts, including Kherson Oblast. The annexation was unrecognized by the international community, with the exception of North Korea and Syria.[71] The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling on countries not to recognise what it described as an "attempted illegal annexation" and demanded that Russia "immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw."[72][73]
However, in early October 2022, the Russian defensive lines in the northern parts of the oblast collapsed, and Ukraine successfully recaptured about 1,200km2 of territory.[74] Deputy head of the Kherson Military-Civilian Administration Kirill Stremousov died in a car crash near Henichesk on 9 November 2022.[9] A few days later, on 12 November 2022, Ukrainian forces took back the city of Kherson.[75] Following the loss of Kherson in November 2022, the Russian occupation force moved its temporary administrative centre to Henichesk.[76]
After being reported missing by her husband Pavel Gubarev,[77] on 16 November 2022 Russian media reported that Ekaterina Gubareva, another deputy head of the administration, had been detained by the Russian police in relation to a corruption case involving embezzlement of public funds and suspended from her current position.[78] Pavel Gubarev later announced on 18 November that Gubareva had been released, without offering further details.[79]
Flooding in Kherson Oblast downstream of the Kakhovka Dam
In June 2023, the Kakhovka Dam, which was under the control of Russia, was breached, flooding vast swathes of land along the Dnipro river.[80] Many experts have concluded that Russian forces likely blew up a segment of the dam.[81][82]
The consequences of the destruction of the dam are expected to become a long-term environmental disaster.[83] According to a regional official, the death toll due to flooding had reached 29 in Russian-occupied portions of the oblast as of June 17.[84] On 18 June, the United Nations condemned Russia for refusing to allow humanitarian access to the occupied flood-affected areas, with the UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine Denise Brown saying "We urge the Russian authorities to act in accordance with their obligations under international humanitarian law."[85][86] Russian authorities said that their decision was motivated by unspecified "security concerns".[85]
Government
Composition
The governor and the prime minister are in charge of the administration, which includes:[87][88]
First Deputy Prime Minister for Finance and Economy
Sergey Cherevko
Deputy Prime Minister for Social Policy
Administrative divisions
The administrative divisions of Russia's claimed territory
On 5 August 2022, the occupation administration switched to using the old pre-2020 reform divisions of Kherson Oblast established in the USSR, with 18 districts rather than the modern five.[89][90] These are:[91][92]
On 17 August, they added two urban districts around Kherson city and Nova Kakhovka.[91] On 21 September, areas of occupied Mykolaiv Oblast were incorporated into the Kherson administration as two new municipal districts: Snigirevsky District – another former raion abolished in 2020 – and the so-called "Aleksandrovsky District"[93][94][95][96] with no apparent historical basis, centered in the village of Oleksandrivka in Mykolaiv Oblast.[97]
Human rights
Censorship and internet restrictions
On 21 July 2022, it was reported that a then-recent Russian decree had extended Russian 2022 war censorship laws to the Kherson oblast, with deportation to Russia included as a punishment for infringement.[98]
A few weeks after taking over Kherson city, Russian soldiers seized the offices of local internet service providers and took control of the networks, rerouting data through Russian networks. Under the occupation regime, the social media sites Facebook, Instagram and Twitter were blocked, as well as Ukrainian and other news websites.[99]
As the 2022 Kherson counteroffensive liberated much of northern Kherson Oblast, Ukrainian investigation teams uncovered "widespread evidence" of sexual abuse by Russian occupation forces against the population of the region.[100] By 3 November 2022, Ukrainian investigators had documented six alleged cases of sexual assault in newly liberated regions.[101]
Torture and abduction of civilians by Russian forces
Dementiy Bilyi, head of the Kherson regional department of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, claimed that the Russian security forces were "beating, torturing, and kidnapping" civilians in the Kherson Oblast of Ukraine. He added that eyewitnesses had described "dozens" of arbitrary searches and detentions, resulting in an unknown amount of abducted persons.[102] At least 400 residents had gone missing by 16 March, with the mayor and deputy mayor of the town of Skadovsk being allegedly abducted by armed men.[103] An allegedly leaked letter described Russian plans to unleash a "great terror" to suppress protests occurring in Kherson, stating that people would "have to be taken from their homes in the middle of the night".[104]
Ukrainians who escaped from occupied Kherson into Ukrainian-controlled territory provided testimonies of torture, abuse and kidnapping by Russian forces in the region. One person, from Bilozerka in Kherson Oblast, provided physical evidence of being tortured by Russians and described beatings, electrocutions, mock executions, strangulations, threats to kill family members and other forms of torture.[105]
An investigation by BBC News gathered evidence of torture, which in addition to beatings also included electrocution and burns on people's hands and feet. A doctor who treated victims of torture in the region reported: "Some of the worst were burn marks on genitals, a gunshot wound to the head of a girl who was raped and burns from an iron on a patient's back and stomach. A patient told me two wires from a car battery were attached to his groin and he was told to stand on a wet rag". In addition to the BBC, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine have reported on torture and disappearances carried out by Russian occupation forces in the region. One resident stated: "In Kherson, now people go missing all the time (...) there is a war going on, only this part is without bombs."[106]
Kherson's elected Ukrainian mayor compiled a list of more than 300 people who had been kidnapped by Russian forces as of 15 May 2022. According to The Times, in the building housing the Russian occupation authorities, the screams of the tortured can be frequently heard throughout the corridors.[107]
According to The Washington Post, by 15 April 824 graves had been dug at Kherson's cemetery.[108]
On 22 July 2022, Human Rights Watch reported that Russian forces had tortured, unlawfully detained, and forcibly disappeared civilians in the occupied areas of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. The purpose of the abuse seemed to be to obtain information and to instil fear so that people would accept the occupation, as Russia seeks to assert sovereignty over occupied territory in violation of international law.[109]
Protests by residents of Kherson against the Russian occupation of Kherson city in early March 2022
On 5 March, residents of Kherson went to a rally with Ukrainian flags and chanted that the city is still Ukrainian and will never be Russian, despite Russian occupation. The Russian military opened warning fire against the protesters. At the same time, the National Police of Ukraine published a video where a Kherson police officer, holding a Ukrainian flag in his hands, jumped onto a Russian armored personnel carrier that was driving past the rally, and local residents supported his action with shouts and applause.[111]
On 7 March, the Kherson Regional Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine, on the basis of Part 2 of Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (violation of the laws and customs of war, associated with premeditated murder), opened a criminal case into the death of several protesters in Nova Kakhovka. According to the investigation, during a rally on 6 March, the Russian military opened fire on protesters indiscriminately "despite the fact that people were unarmed and did not pose any threat," resulting in at least one death and seven injuries.[112]
On 20 March, protesters in Kherson confronted several Russian military vehicles and told them to "go home".[113] New rallies against the occupation happened on 11 and 27 April, both of which were violently dispersed by Russian occupation forces and separatist militias, killing four people in the process.[114] The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars reports that medical workers in Kherson refused to go to work, in order to boycott Russian occupation forces and not treat their injured.[115]
Guided by contacts in Ukrainian security services, many ordinary citizens in Kherson City formed "a grass-roots resistance movement", becoming anti-occupation partisans.[118] They secretly took videos of Russian forces and sent them to the Ukrainian army along with corresponding coordinates, circulated weaponry throughout the city, and even killed Russian soldiers at night, creating an atmosphere of "fear and paranoia" among the occupation forces.[118]
On 20 April, regional media from Odesa reported that pro-Russian blogger Valery Kuleshov had been killed by Ukrainian partisans in Kherson.[119]
On 6 August, deputy head of the Russian administration in Nova Kakhovka, Vitaly Gura, was shot dead in his home.[120] In September 2022, information emerged that Gura's assassination had been faked by the FSB.[121]
People's Deputy of UkraineOleksii Kovalov, who had been accused by Ukrainian authorities of collaborating with Russian forces since early July by taking the position of deputy head of the Russian-installed Kherson Oblast government,[122] was shot dead in his own home on 29 August.[123][122]
↑ On 30 September 2022, Russia declared that it had annexed Kherson Oblast. Russia also controlled two small parts of Mykolaiv Oblast at the time, and it streamlined these parts into Kherson Oblast. These two parts were the city of Snihurivka and its surroundings, as well as the outer portion of the Kinburn Peninsula. See Russian occupation of Mykolaiv Oblast.
↑ The Russians still claim that the official capital city is Kherson even after its loss in November 2022, and Henichesk now serves as the temporary administrative centre.
Kherson is a port city in Ukraine that serves as the administrative centre of Kherson Oblast. Located by the Black Sea and on the Dnieper River, Kherson is the home to a major ship-building industry and is a regional economic centre. At the beginning of 2022, it’s population was estimated at 279,131.
Kherson Oblast, also known as Khersonshchyna, is an oblast (province) in southern Ukraine. It is located just north of Crimea. Its administrative center is Kherson, on the northern or right bank of the Dnieper river, which bisects the oblast. The oblast has an area of 28,461 km2 and a population of 1,001,598. It is considered the 'fruit basket' of the country, as much of its agricultural production is dispersed throughout the country, with production peaking during the summer months.
Henichesk is a port city along the Sea of Azov in Kherson Oblast, southern Ukraine. It serves as the administrative centre of Henichesk Raion. Since 9 November 2022, it has served as the temporary administrative centre of the Russian occupation administration in the region. Henichesk also hosts the administration of Henichesk urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. In January 2022, Henichesk had an estimated population of 18,889.
Snihurivka Raion was a subdivision of Mykolaiv Oblast of Ukraine. Its administrative center was the town of Snihurivka. The raion was abolished on 18 July 2020 as part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, which reduced the number of raions of Mykolaiv Oblast to four. The area of Snihurivka Raion was merged into Bashtanka Raion. The last estimate of the raion population was 38,849
Ekaterina Yurevna Gubareva is a Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian activist and political figure.
The southern Ukraine campaign is an ongoing theatre of operation in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on 24 February 2022. From their base in Russian-occupied Crimea, the Russian Armed Forces attacked Kherson Oblast, Mykolaiv Oblast, and Zaporizhzhia Oblast in southern Ukraine, battling the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
This page provides information on the most recently known control of localities in Ukraine during the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War, which started in 2014 and escalated with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It includes all larger localities across the country, as well as some smaller localities close to current or recent lines of contact.
The battle of Kherson was a military engagement between Russian and Ukrainian forces that began on 24 February 2022 as part of the southern Ukraine campaign of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The battle ended on 2 March 2022 with the capture of the city of Kherson and a pocket of land on the right bank of the Dnieper river by Russian forces. It was the first major city, and the only regional capital, to be captured by Russian forces during the invasion. The Russian occupation of Kherson Oblast followed thereafter.
During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting Russian occupation of multiple Ukrainian towns and cities, numerous cases of non-violent resistance against the invasion took place. Local residents organised protests against the invasion and blocked the movement of Russian military equipment. The Russian military dispersed the protests, sometimes with live fire, injuring many and killing some. Most of the large protests ended in March.
The Russian occupation of Zaporizhzhia Oblast began on 24 February 2022 when Russian forces invaded Ukraine and seized southern areas of Zaporizhzhia Oblast. On 26 February, the city of Berdiansk fell under Russian control, followed by Russian victory at Melitopol on 1 March. Russian forces besieged the city of Enerhodar, home of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, then captured it on 4 March. They did not take the oblast's capital city of Zaporizhzhia, however, which remained under Ukrainian government control.
During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine there has been military and political collaborationism between Ukrainian citizens and officials and the Russian military.
Vladimir Vasilyevich Saldo is a Ukrainian and Russian politician serving as the acting governor of the collaborationist annexed Kherson Oblast in Russian-occupied Ukraine since 4 October 2022. A member of the ruling United Russia, he previously served as the head of the Kherson military-civilian administration from 26 April to 4 October 2022.
Hennadiy Mykolayovych Lahuta was a Ukrainian politician who served as the governor of Kherson Oblast from 26 October 2021 to 9 July 2022. Lahuta was removed from office by the Russian military on 26 April 2022 during the Russian occupation of Kherson Oblast. He was removed from office by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on 9 July, replacing him with Dmytro Butriy. He was a member of the We Have to Live Here party headed by the mayor of Kherson Ihor Kolykhaiev.
During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia occupied vast portions of the territory of Ukraine, having already occupied parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts as well as the entire Autonomous Republic of Crimea since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2014. Partisan groups began to be organized in mid-2022. These groups have been involved in intelligence-gathering, sabotage, and assassinations. Much of their activity has taken place in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
The Russian occupation of Mykolaiv Oblast is an ongoing military occupation of Ukraine's Mykolaiv Oblast by Russian forces that began on 26 February 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine as part of the southern Ukraine campaign. The Russian-installed occupation regime was called the "Nikolaev military-civilian administration".
A military counteroffensive was launched by Ukraine on 29 August 2022 to expel Russian forces occupying the southern regions of Kherson and Mykolaiv oblasts.
The Russian occupation of Zhytomyr Oblast was a military occupation that began on 26 February 2022, 2 days after Russia invaded Ukraine. The capital, Zhytomyr was never captured and was bombed in the 2022 Zhytomyr attacks. Small towns and settlements were however captured, in the north-west and north-central Korosten Raion, near the border with Kyiv Oblast.
Sergei Vladimirovich Yeliseyev is a Russian statesman who was the First Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Kaliningrad Oblast in 2021-2022. In 2022, after 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and the occupation of the Kherson Oblast, he was appointed chairman of the government of the Russian occupation military-civilian administration of the Kherson Oblast, and later - acting head of the MCA. In November 2022, Yeliseyev returned to his previous post in the Government of the Kaliningrad Oblast.
On 11 November 2022, the Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated and recaptured the city of Kherson and other areas of the Kherson Oblast and parts of the Mykolaiv Oblast on the Right-Bank of the Dnipro River. The Russian Armed Forces, which had occupied the city since 2 March 2022, withdrew and retried to the Left-Bank of the Kherson Oblast over the course of 9–11 November 2022.
The 124th Independent Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces is a military formation of the Territorial Defense Forces of Ukraine in Kherson Oblast. It is part of Operational Command South.
↑ "Nova Kakhovka has fallen to Russia: Ukraine media". The Business standard. 27 February 2022. Archived from the original on 27 February 2022. Retrieved 28 February 2022. Its mayor Volodymyr Kovalenko has reportedly said that Russian troops have seized the city's executive committee and removed all Ukrainian flags from buildings
1 2 Hird, Karolina; Stepanenko, Kateryna; Lawlor, Katherine; Mappes, Grace; Bailey, Riley; Kagan, Frederick (4 October 2022). "Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, October 4". Institute for the Study of War. Retrieved 5 October 2022.
↑ "Nova Kakhovka has fallen to Russia: Ukraine media". The Business standard. 27 February 2022. Archived from the original on 27 February 2022. Retrieved 28 February 2022. Its mayor Volodymyr Kovalenko has reportedly said that Russian troops have seized the city's executive committee and removed all Ukrainian flags from buildings
↑ Clark, Mason; Barros, George; Stepanenko, Kateryna (6 April 2022). "Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 6". Institute for the Study of War. Retrieved 6 April 2022. Russian forces completely vacated Sumy Oblast.
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