Video shows Ukraine’s forces about nine miles from city centre but Kyiv unable to confirm Russian retreat

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

Ukrainian forces were closing on the outskirts of Kherson city, as Russia said on Thursday it had begun its retreat from the southern city announced the previous day.

Hours after claiming the liberation of the key town of Snihurivka, images emerged of relaxed-looking soldiers from Ukraine’s 28th Mechanized Brigade with a Ukrainian flag in Kyslivka, a village just outside Klapaya and about nine miles (15km) from Kherson’s city centre.

With Russia still in control of a large swathe of occupied territory, Ukraine may encounter unexpected resistance as it tries to push south

On the face of it, Russia’s sheepish yet televised announcement that it will abandon Kherson city and points west of the Dnipro represents a remarkable victory for Ukraine and a sophisticated military strategy. If the withdrawal does indeed lead to the swift recapture of the city, the Ukrainians will have done so with relatively little loss of life and without what could have been costly urban warfare.

From the moment the Russian advance was stopped south of Mykolaiv in the spring, the invaders’ position on the west bank was obviously strategically vulnerable. But it has taken a careful three-month campaign to force the Kremlin to conclude it cannot hang on. This began with the targeting of Russian logistics on both sides of the river with Himars and other longer-range rocket artillery, then turned to targeting strategic bridges, and then the pontoons that the Russians had built to resupply their forces in the cross-river pocket.

Loss of only regional capital captured by Moscow since invasion began will come as significant blow to Vladimir Putin

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

The Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, has ordered the country’s troops to leave an area including Ukraine’s city of Kherson, the only regional capital captured by Moscow since the February invasion.

A Ukrainian victory in in the city, one of the main objectives of Kyiv’s southern offensive, would be widely seen as a significant blow to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, only weeks after a high-profile ceremony in Moscow in which he announced the “forever” annexation of the Kherson region, along with three others.