Russians Flee without Fight from Biggest Ukraine War Conquest as Putin Loses 80,000 Men

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(Social media video snapshot shows moment one of the first Ukrainian service members to arrive in liberated Kherson (right) getting tossed in the air by the excited locals)

Russia’s once much-feared troops have fled and abandoned without a fight its most “prized” conquest in their bloodthirsty dictator Vladimir Putin.

His war of aggression against Ukraine in the southern port city of Kherson has not gone well, and the mind-blowing manpower losses have now surpassed the milestone of 80,000 Russian soldiers killed in battle.

The Russians’ Panicked, Humiliating Flight

Jubilant crowds of local residents celebrated in the streets of Kherson, a regional capital of about 300,000 people in Southern Ukraine, on Friday as they welcomed the first units of Ukrainian reconnaissance, special forces, and regular troops.

The jubilant liberation of Kherson by Ukraine from the bloody but faltering grasp of Putin’s Russia came as a much faster development than anticipated, as the Russian troops who were supposed to conduct rear guard fights with the advancing Ukrainians to cover a previously announced retreat decided not to stick around but fled overnight on Thursday.

The region of Kherson was the only Ukrainian territory on the western (right) bank of the large Dnipro River that had been conquered by Putin’s hordes when on February 24, the Moscow tyrant threw 200,000 heavily armed Russian troops to capture Ukraine in a bid to revive the corpse of the former Soviet empire.

As the combination of heroic Ukrainian resistance and top-notch US weaponry frustrated Putin’s ambitions, Ukraine went on the offensive, leaving up to 40,000 Russian troops stuck on the western bank of the Dnipro River.

At first, Moscow was gearing up to defend its conquest of Kherson but earlier this week announced a retreat – though it wasn’t known whether the withdrawal was real or just a trap designed to ambush the Ukrainians.

Russian Forces Run for the Hills

While Ukraine’s forces advanced carefully, the Russian retreat proved real, but Putin forces, who were supposed to cover with street fights in Kherson, literally picked up and left after midnight on Thursday, Ukrainian presidential adviser and military intelligence expert Oleksiy Arestovych announced on YouTube.

The fleeing Russians left behind a fair amount of trophy weapons, such as missile systems, tanks, armored vehicles, and even an attack helicopter, as they used makeshift pontoon bridges and kinds of vessels to get on the other bank of the Dnipro River. Its narrowest point at Kherson is about 1,000 feet.

As jubilant locals celebrated in the streets, with joyful crowds even tossing Ukrainian service members up in the air, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced in his video address on Friday night that Kherson had been liberated.

 

(Social media video snapshot)

At Least 80,000 Russian Soldiers Killed Trying to Conquer Ukraine

Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed on Friday that it had managed to withdraw all of its 30,000 troops safely south of the Dnipro River, but Ukraine’s military said it took a heavy toll on the retreating Russians.

So much so that on Saturday, the number of Russian soldiers killed in combat in Ukraine surpassed the milestone of 80,000, according to the official statistics of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, not counting those wounded, missing, or captured.

The number includes only members of the official Russian military. It does not account for the losses of Putin’s auxiliary, mercenary, and proxy forces, who are believed to have lost tens of thousands of men themselves.

Thus, the total number of Russian fighters killed in Ukraine in the nearly nine months since Putin started the invasion is estimated to be beyond 100,000, while all Russian casualties – including the missing and wounded – are likely beyond 200,000.

Besides the 80,000 official Russian military members killed in battle in Ukraine, the Ukrainian defenders have also destroyed close to 18,000 units of Russian military equipment, including close to 3,000 main battle tanks.

According to Serhii Khlan, the deputy head of Kherson Regional Council, the fleeing Russians left behind “a lot” of military hardware, as cited by The Daily Mail.

The panicked flight of the Russian rear guard forces occurred after a Ukrainian missile strike on the already damaged Antonivksiy bridge destroyed it in full by hitting either a retreating Russian ammo truck or an explosive charge planted by the Russians beneath the bridge.

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