Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday hailed the recent recapture of the eastern city of Kherson as the “beginning of the end” of the war but acknowledged the price paid in blood as he spoke to civilians and troops in the city’s central square, the Washington Post reports.
“Nobody just gave us anything,” Zelensky said when a reporter suggested that Russian troops had fled the city without much of a fight. “The price of this victory is considered very high,” he adding that the cost was “a lot of people wounded and a very high number of dead. I think they ran because our army threatened the enemy and they were in grave danger,” Zelensky said of the Russian invaders. “There were intense fights. And here is the result: We are here today in Kherson.”