11 November 2022 saw one of the war's most celebrated moments: Ukrainian forces entering Kherson city after Russian troops withdrew across the Dnipro, and residents flooding squares in tears of relief to greet soldiers who had liberated them from eight months of occupation. Less than 24 hours later, Russian artillery from the left bank of the Dnipro resumed bombardment of the city. What followed — and what continues through 2026 — is one of the war's most prolonged humanitarian catastrophes: a liberated city under effectively permanent siege from across a river, unable to significantly recover, losing most of its population to repeated shelling that kills civilians who braved the occupation and its liberation alike.
The Liberation: 11 November 2022
Russia's withdrawal from Kherson city was one of the war's significant strategic reversals. After capturing Kherson in the war's first days (March 2–3, 2022), Russia occupied the city and the right bank of the Dnipro for eight months. By autumn 2022, Ukrainian forces under General Valerii Zaluzhnyi had built pressure from multiple directions — the HIMARS campaign that destroyed Russian logistics across the river crossings, Ukrainian advances from the north and northwest, and the reality of unsustainable supply lines across the Dnipro under Ukrainian fire. Russia's Southern Military District command ordered withdrawal rather than defend the city in potentially costly urban warfare.
Ukraine entered Kherson on 11 November 2022 — remarkably, without significant battle. Russian forces had withdrawn in organized fashion, removing usable military equipment, taking collaborators and Russian administrators, and leaving booby traps in buildings. The scenes of Kherson residents greeting soldiers — elderly women pressing flowers into soldiers' hands, crowds singing the national anthem — became among the war's most enduring images, used by Ukrainian and Western media to illustrate what liberation meant to people who had lived under violent occupation. President Zelensky's visit three days later, standing before crowds with the national flag, was a deliberately staged demonstration of Ukrainian reclamation of sovereign territory.
From Liberation Joy to Constant Shelling
Russia's military logic for Kherson after withdrawal was straightforward and brutal: the right bank city sits within direct fire range of the left bank, which Russia still controlled. Where Russian troops occupied buildings in Kherson during occupation, Russian artillery now occupied positions on the opposite bank that could reach every block of the city. The river, at 200–500 meters width in the Kherson area, is a military position not a geographical barrier — it provided Russia a stable fire line from which to systematically shell Ukrainian-controlled Kherson while Ukrainian forces could not easily cross the river to eliminate those positions.
The first Russian artillery strikes on the liberated city occurred within 24 hours of Ukrainian entry. What followed was not periodic harassment but near-daily bombardment that continued through all of 2023, 2024, and into 2025–2026. The character of the shelling changed somewhat over time — early mass artillery barrages gave way to more targeted strikes on specific infrastructure (power stations, water pumping facilities, grain storage) and drone attacks using FPV and Shahed types — but the operational logic remained constant: make Kherson city under Ukrainian administration so unsafe and non-functional that it cannot serve as a military logistics base or administrative center and cannot be reconstructed while Russia holds the left bank.
Civilian Exodus and Remaining Population
Kherson began the war with approximately 280,000-290,000 residents. During eight months of Russian occupation, tens of thousands fled — some to Ukrainian-controlled areas (complicated by Russian restrictions on movement), some deported to Russia, some evacuated through humanitarian corridors. Post-liberation surveys estimated 60,000–80,000 residents remained in Kherson at the time of liberation in November 2022. The emotional liberation reinforced some residents' commitment to staying despite the risks they had endured under occupation.
After liberation, the combination of continued shelling, loss of utilities, economic collapse, and physical danger caused further gradual depopulation. The Ukrainian government and international organizations actively encouraged evacuation, particularly for families with children and elderly residents. Mandatory evacuation orders were issued for certain Kherson neighborhoods most directly exposed to Russian fire. By 2025–2026, the remaining population is estimated at approximately 50,000–80,000 — the most resilient, poorest, or most attached residents who chose to stay despite conditions that make normal life impossible. These are among the most vulnerable civilians in the entire war zone — repeatedly struck, repeatedly grieving their killed neighbors, and unable to access the safety the rest of Ukraine has relatively more access to.
Kakhovka Dam Catastrophe: June 2023
The destruction of the Kakhovka dam on 6 June 2023 delivered a second catastrophic blow to Kherson city and region after the first catastrophe of occupation. The dam's failure released approximately 18 cubic kilometers of water downstream, flooding the lower Dnipro basin. Kherson city — located on the right bank approximately 80 kilometers downstream from the dam — was inundated within 24 hours. Entire neighborhoods adjacent to the river flooded to depths of 3–5 meters. Residents who had survived nine months of Russian occupation and eight months of post-liberation shelling now faced flood waters in their homes.
Ukrainian emergency services, volunteer organizations, and international humanitarian responders mounted an immediate rescue operation — boats evacuating remaining residents from flooded streets as Russian forces fired on rescue vessels from the left bank in documented incidents. The Kakhovka flood destroyed or damaged thousands of additional Kherson homes, contaminated groundwater across the region with pollutants, chemicals, and sewage from the flooded industrial zones and livestock facilities, and eliminated the region's primary water supply system. The cumulative damage to Kherson from occupation, shelling, and flood makes it one of the most destroyed cities in the war — comparable in damage scale to Mariupol, though the comparison is complicated by Mariupol's more complete destruction.
Shelling Statistics and Casualties
Kherson regional authorities and Ukrainian government sources have documented the shelling campaign's human and material toll. From liberation in November 2022 through the end of 2025, Russian attacks killed over 700 civilians in Kherson city (making it among the highest civilian death toll cities over the period) and wounded several thousand more. The pattern of civilian deaths illustrates the day-to-day reality: residents killed standing at water distribution points, waiting in bread queues, walking to pharmacies, or simply standing outside their buildings. The randomness of death — which block, which moment — creates the conditions of chronic traumatic stress reported in emergency psychology literature from conflict zones.
Property destruction has been comprehensive: thousands of residential apartment buildings, hundreds of private homes, numerous educational institutions, healthcare facilities (Kherson regional hospital struck multiple times), bridges, transport infrastructure, and industrial facilities have been hit. The reconstruction cost for Kherson city alone is estimated in the billions of dollars, making it one of the most expensive post-war reconstruction targets in Ukraine — and one that cannot begin seriously until the river front line changes and Russian fire capability is eliminated or the front advances south of current positions.
Utilities and Basic Services
Kherson's water, electricity, heating, and communications systems have been attacked repeatedly and systematically. The water supply system — dependent on pumping stations on the river bank that are in direct Russian fire range — has been struck scores of times. Ukrainian utility workers perform repairs under fire, sometimes restoring service within 24–48 hours of attacks, only for the same infrastructure to be struck again days later. This pattern of attack-repair-reattack represents a deliberate strategy of denial: not just destroying infrastructure but preventing it from functioning by targeting repair as well as initial installation.
Electricity supply was disrupted repeatedly through attacks on regional transmission infrastructure and the general Russian campaign against Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Kherson operated on emergency generator power for extended periods, with residential buildings receiving electricity in rotating windows measured in hours per day during peak winter shortage periods. The heating system — central district heating normal for Soviet-era apartment blocks — has effectively ceased functioning in many buildings, with remaining residents using electric heaters (when power is available) or wood-burning improvised stoves in apartments not designed for such heating. These conditions — cold, dark, under bombardment, with limited water — describe daily life for the approximately 50,000–80,000 civilians who chose to remain in Kherson through 2025–2026.
Military Situation on the Dnipro
The Dnipro river front line has been among the most stable front sections of the war since Ukrainian liberation. Neither side has been able to cross in force and hold territory on the opposite bank for an extended period. Ukraine has conducted operations to establish small bridgehead positions on the left bank — particularly in the Dniprovske area — but could not build enough logistics capacity across the wide river under Russian fire to exploit any bridgehead into a significant territorial gain. Russia has conducted limited probing operations and island seizures but has not mounted a serious attempt to recross the Dnipro and retake the right bank.
The river has become a logistics and fire control line more than an active maneuver front. Ukrainian artillery and drone systems strike Russian positions, supply routes, and command posts on the left bank; Russian artillery and drones strike Kherson city and Ukrainian military positions on the right bank. Both sides have developed extensive observation networks across the river, with drones providing real-time intelligence on enemy positions. The stalemate on the Dnipro line is stable in the medium term because the river itself is a formidable operational obstacle — but it perpetuates Kherson's status as a permanently endangered front-line city.
Islands and the Left Bank Bridgeheads
The Dnipro delta and lower river contain numerous islands that became sites of intense fighting as Ukraine attempted to establish observation posts and bridgehead positions on the left bank. Specifically, the Kozacha Hora and Krynky area on the left bank southeast of Kherson became the site of the most significant Ukrainian bridgehead operation — Ukrainian marines crossed the river and established positions in late 2023, maintaining a contested bridgehead through 2024 in one of the war's most dangerous small-unit operations.
The Krynky bridgehead was maintained at extraordinary human cost under relentless Russian attack — troops supplied by small boat under fire, casualty evacuation across the river, no possibility of armored or heavy vehicle support. Ukraine maintained the bridgehead to demonstrate the capability to operate on the left bank and to tie down Russian forces that might otherwise redeploy elsewhere, but the bridgehead never expanded into a tactically exploitable position that could change the overall Kherson front dynamic. The operation became a symbol of Ukrainian military determination and human sacrifice under impossible conditions — small groups of marines holding ground against overwhelming Russian firepower to maintain a tenuous forward presence.
Humanitarian Response
International humanitarian organizations — UNICEF, ICRC, Médecins Sans Frontières, World Food Programme, and bilateral organizations — have maintained sustained humanitarian operations in Kherson city despite the ongoing shelling risk. Aid workers operate under the same fire danger as civilian residents, and several have been killed or wounded. The humanitarian response includes daily food distribution, medical care at surviving healthcare facilities (supplemented by mobile medical teams), water distribution by truck when the pumping system is down, psychosocial support for civilians experiencing chronic trauma, and winter humanitarian kits providing heating equipment.
The Ukrainian government has maintained civilian administration of Kherson despite the extreme conditions — the regional governor and administrative structure continue to function, providing civil governance services and coordinating both humanitarian aid and military-civilian coordination for residents who declined evacuation. This administrative continuity is both practically important (providing food subsidy systems, pension payments, and social services) and politically significant — demonstrating Ukrainian sovereign authority functioning in the most difficult circumstances as a rebuttal to Russian narratives about Ukrainian administrative dysfunction. Kherson's civilian officials have become some of the war's most recognized figures, conducting media interviews while air raids continue around them.
Frequently Asked Questions
When did Ukraine liberate Kherson city?
Ukraine liberated Kherson city on 11 November 2022 after Russian forces withdrew across the Dnipro to the left bank. Russian troops had occupied Kherson since early March 2022 — approximately eight months. The liberation was celebrated as one of the war's most significant Ukrainian achievements, with President Zelensky visiting in person three days later. The liberation was immediately followed by Russian artillery resuming fire on the city from the left bank.
Why does Kherson still get bombed despite being liberated?
After withdrawing, Russian forces established artillery and observation positions on the left (Russian-controlled) bank of the Dnipro river — at distances under 1km in some areas from Kherson city. The narrow river does not provide protection from direct fire, artillery, mortars, or drones. Russia has maintained near-daily bombardment of Kherson from these positions through 2026, as the river front line has remained stable since November 2022.
How many civilians remain in Kherson city in 2026?
Approximately 50,000–80,000 civilians remain in Kherson city — roughly 20–30% of the pre-war population of 280,000–290,000. The majority fled during occupation, after liberation due to shelling, or after the June 2023 Kakhovka dam flood. Remaining residents face daily shelling danger, disrupted utilities, limited economic activity, and ongoing psychological trauma from nearly four years of continuous crisis.
Who held the advantage during the Kherson Liberation Aftermath 2022–2026: Life Under Shelling and Recovery Efforts?
Both sides experienced periods of advantage during the Kherson Liberation Aftermath 2022–2026: Life Under Shelling and Recovery Efforts. Russia's material superiority in artillery and manpower was offset by Ukrainian defensive preparation, Western-supplied weapons systems, and superior use of drones and reconnaissance.
What was the outcome and aftermath of the Kherson Liberation Aftermath 2022–2026: Life Under Shelling and Recovery Efforts?
The outcome of the Kherson Liberation Aftermath 2022–2026: Life Under Shelling and Recovery Efforts is analyzed in detail above. The aftermath shaped subsequent frontline dynamics, affected troop morale on both sides, and influenced Western decision-making on military aid and support packages for Ukraine.
Sources
- Ukrainian Regional Military Administration — Kherson shelling and casualty data
- UNICEF — Kherson humanitarian situation reports
- ICRC — Protection of civilians in Kherson
- ISW — Kherson front line analysis 2022–2026
- Human Rights Watch — Kherson post-liberation civilian harm documentation
- UN OCHA — Ukraine humanitarian situation reports, Kherson section