Kherson after the Russian retreat announcement: what 12 November 2022 followed
A look back at the southern front and the announcement that preceded 12 November 2022.
What did the map of southern Ukraine look like on 12 November 2022? Three days earlier, on 9 November 2022, Russian forces had announced a retreat from the city of Kherson, from the western bank of the Dnieper River in Mykolaiv Oblast and from the western part of Kherson Oblast.
The announcement came during the Ukrainian southern counteroffensive. That operation had been launched on 29 August 2022 with the aim of expelling Russian forces occupying the southern regions of Kherson and Mykolaiv oblasts.
By 12 November 2022, the retreat declared on 9 November was the defining development in the south. It covered the city of Kherson, the western bank of the Dnieper in Mykolaiv Oblast and the western part of Kherson Oblast, so the announced withdrawal reached across the two regions that the counteroffensive had targeted since late August.
For a publication that follows government and public life in Ukraine, the date marks a point where the southern front was shifting and the question of the occupied territory west of the Dnieper was being answered on the ground.
