On november 14th, four days after Ukrainian troops retook the city of Kherson, people continued to gather on the main square, to celebrate and wave Ukrainian flags, to greet liberating soldiers with hugs and bouquets of flowers—and to try to get a mobile-phone signal. Covering their retreat, the Russians had cut the electricity supply, toppled the television tower and destroyed phone masts. Over the weekend a Starlink satellite connection was set up in the square, but service is patchy. Under a bright blue sky, people tapped screens and held them hopefully aloft.

In mid-morning, President Volodymyr Zelensky made a surprise appearance. He addressed a company of soldiers, bowed his head in commemoration and sang the national anthem as the flag was raised. In his Sunday address he had said that officials had discovered evidence of more than 400 war crimes in the region and added that “the situation in the Kherson region is still very dangerous”.