We are pausing our live coverage of events in Ukraine.

People across the country have been celebrating after Russia pulled its troops out of the southern city of Kherson on Friday. The city now needs to restore basic services.

Russia, meanwhile, has made the port city of Henichesk in south-eastern Ukraine its new temporary administrative capital for the Kherson region.

You can read more about the day's events here.

Anastasia Levchenko
Reporting from Kyiv

There are concerns that Russia could ramp up attacks on Ukraine following their withdrawal from the southern city of Kherson.

In recent times, Russia has made retaliatory attacks on cities, including the capital, Kyiv, following Ukrainian gains on the battlefield.

Oleksiy Kuleba, head of the Kyiv region military administration, has told the BBC the threat level of attack on the Kyiv region remains high and could increase after news about Kherson.

“Indeed, over the past month, after the successes at the front of the armed forces of Ukraine, we have seen the massive shelling of peaceful settlements in Ukraine.

"Now I want to say that the threat of rocket attacks on the Kyiv region remains high.

"We are dealing with a vile and unpredictable enemy.

"We are constantly on the alert and, as the authorities, we are doing everything possible."

Catherine Byaruhanga
Reporting from Kyiv

Spirits remained high in the Kyiv on Saturday, with many people travelling to the iconic Maidan Square throughout the day to celebrate Ukraine’s recapture of Kherson.

Some locals stayed there for hours, just soaking up the celebratory atmosphere.

The Ukrainian flag was a ubiquitous sight, with crowds regularly breaking into patriotic chants or songs.

Among them was Daryiia, 16, and her niece Vladyslava, aged six.

They’re both originally from Kherson and fled here to the capital six months ago.

“Yesterday, our city was liberated from Russian occupation,” she told the BBC. “We very much want to go home.”

But as the day wore on and the sun disappeared, those feelings began to be tempered by nervousness.

Everyone here knows that the war against Russia is far from over and that a retaliatory strike from the Putin regime could take place at any moment.

Image source, Reuters

And in slightly happier news, it has emerged that marriages outnumbered divorces in Ukraine by almost three to one in the past eight months, according to Ukraine’s justice ministry.

In March-October - the main period of Russia’s invasion - over 169,000 couples got married and over 56,000 got divorced.

“A positive trend can also be traced by comparing the data of 2022 and 2021," the ministry says, quoted by the Ukrainska Pravda daily.

That trend comes despite the disruption of war, with men of fighting age often separated from their partners and family members living in separate countries.

Adam Durbin
BBC News Live reporter

Image source, PA Media

Back in Ukraine, renowned graffiti-artist Banksy has unveiled his latest work on a building devastated by shelling outside the capital, Kyiv.

Banksy posted a picture on Instagram of the artwork, a gymnast doing a handstand amid debris, in Borodyanka.

Murals spotted in and around Kyiv had led to speculation the anonymous artist was working in the war-torn country.

Another mural, not officially claimed, depicts a man resembling Russian President Vladimir Putin being defeated at judo by a child.

Read more here.

Ahead of winter, Ukraine's army is getting thousands of British cold weather kits, as the UK ramps up training for Ukrainian troops, the UK Ministry of Defence reports.

The Ukrainians are getting "pretty much the normal kit issue for a British soldier", says one of the trainers in a video clip.

Some 7,000 Ukrainian recruits have been trained in the UK since June, with another 3,000 set to be trained by Christmas, the Financial Times reports.

And 15,000 more are to be trained in Germany and Poland under an EU initiative.

Besides a water shortage, Kherson lacks medicines, bread and other food, but emergency supplies are starting to arrive from nearby Mykolaiv, an aide to the city’s mayor says.

Roman Golovnya said power outages under Russian occupation had prevented bakeries from making bread. He accused the Russian authorities of having made the city’s inhabitants suffer.

According to Golovnya, 70-80,000 people are living in Kherson now, out of a pre-war population of 320,000.

Anastasia Levchenko
Reporting from Kyiv

As Ukrainian forces and Western journalists entered Kherson for the first time after eight months of Russian occupation, they found the city without power, water or electricity - though there is some gas, according to local officials.

Ukrainians are now being told the surrounding towns and villages of the Kherson region will receive electricity from Monday next week.

However in Kherson itself, electricity will be restored at a later stage. It is possible that this will happen within the next month, according to electricity company DTEK.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian TV has resumed broadcasting in the region and is an important source of information for locals.

Jeremy Bowen
International Editor, near Mykolaiv

Ukrainians are still celebrating Russia’s retreat from Kherson. They’ve turned round one of the most serious defeats they suffered in the first weeks of the war. Just as importantly, they believe they have taken a giant step towards eventual victory.

When the victory parties are over, the war continues and there is a changed strategic picture.

Russia’s withdrawal was quicker and more complete than expected. Retreating back over the Dnipro river to prepared positions has stabilised the front in this part of the country.

By conceding Kherson, Russia has preserved the lives of soldiers who might have died fighting a battle they could not win.

Along with their equipment, they can now be deployed elsewhere in the country.

That’s why Ukraine will keep pushing Nato for more and better weapons for the battles ahead this winter.

Russia has made a port city in south-eastern Ukraine - Henichesk - its new temporary administrative capital for the Kherson region.

Henichesk is near Russian-occupied Crimea and a long way from Kherson, which Ukrainian forces recaptured on Friday. It is smaller than Kherson and lies on the Sea of Azov.

Russia’s Interfax news agency says the authorities evacuated all the regional offices as well as “statues and historic artefacts” from the west bank of the Dnipro river - that is, from Kherson city and its surroundings. More than 115,000 people were evacuated from that area, it reports.

Kherson was one of four Ukrainian regions that President Vladimir Putin claimed to have annexed in September – a claim rejected internationally. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

More now on the strategic bridges over the Dnipro river: satellite photos reveal significant damage to the Nova Kakhovka dam, which could raise the threat of flooding in the Kherson region.

US satellite imagery firm Maxar tweets, external: "sections of the dam and sluice gates destroyed". A road and railway line run across the dam, and it's clear from Maxar's photos that they have been severed. But the BBC has not independently assessed the scale of damage.

It is not clear yet what caused this damage. Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of planning to breach the dam with explosives. It is 58km (36 miles) north-east of Kherson city.

Last month Ukrainian experts warned that, were the dam to be blown up, there would be devastation extending not only to Kherson region, but also to Russian-occupied Crimea and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which gets cooling water from the Kakhovka reservoir. That plant is also under Russian control.

Russian forces remain in control of the eastern bank of the Dnipro. They accused Ukrainian troops of shelling Nova Kakhovka on Saturday.

Earlier, Ukrainian intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said it would be hard to destroy the dam. "One needs tens of tonnes of properly placed explosives. You cannot just put a KamAZ [lorry] somewhere nearby," he said.

Footage from social media shows a Ukrainian soldier shouting "greetings from Kherson" after Ukrainian forces entered the key southern city following the withdrawal of Russian troops on Friday.

Ukraine's military forces were warmly greeted by residents who'd been living under Russian occupation for more than eight months.

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who has met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the sidelines of the Asean summit in Cambodia, says there were "very few who believed that Ukraine would survive" and reiterated Ukraine's gratitude for US support.

"This is coming, and our victory will be our joint victory - a victory of all peace-loving nations across the world," he added.

In turn, Blinken hailed the "remarkable courage" of Ukraine's military and people and vowed US support would "continue for as long as it takes" to defeat Russia, the AFP news agency reports.

We've been seeing more celebrations today in Odesa and Kyiv following Russia's withdrawal from Kherson - the only regional capital taken since the war began.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Lyse Doucet
Chief International Correspondent, reporting from Kyiv

Image source, Getty Images

In Kyiv, a city of power cuts, where street lamps have gone dark, Russia's retreat from Kherson has sparked celebration.

News of this significant Ukrainian victory is pulling high-spirited crowds to the capital’s iconic Maidan Square, brandishing banners and flags.

"The end of the war is in sight," exclaimed Valeria as she danced with a gaggle of young women waving a poster painted in Ukraine’s yellow and blue: “Kherson is Ukraine.”

The seeming certainty that Russia will strike back, vengefully, was batted away: “We’ll be ready.”

President Zelensky, who hailed a "historic day”, struck a note of caution last night, underscoring that the city “had not yet been completely cleared of the enemy’s presence".

But images zipping across social media of Kherson’s jubilation and the ripping of Russian flags is hardening Ukrainians’ conviction that there can and will be only one end to this war - victory.

“The war is far from over“ was the sober truism expressed by a presidential adviser to the BBC. But this is a pivotal moment - for Ukraine, for Russia.

Image source, Getty Images

The former head of Ukraine’s National Security Council, Oleksandr Danylyuk, has told the BBC what the recapture of Kherson means to his fellow Ukrainians.

“It’s almost like a national holiday, everyone is cheering, congratulating each other," he said.

“So it’s a great victory, but we understand the war is not over.”

Danylyuk believes Russian forces will “go into deep defence on the left bank [of the Dnipro river]… and it will put them [at an] advantageous position”.

He says the next months will be more difficult, but adds that when it comes to motivation amongst Ukrainian troops: “We are prevailing.”

Ukrainian forces remain cautious despite Russian retreatpublished at 11:24 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2022

11:24 GMT 12 November 2022

Jeremy Bowen
International Editor, reporting from Odesa

The Russian withdrawal from Kherson is historic for the Ukrainians because they have taken a giant step towards an eventual victory.

Zelensky's own spokespeople have been saying they will not rest until they get Russians out of all of the country, including the Crimean peninsula which Russia seized in 2014.

The Russians are arguing that they executed a successful fighting retreat, bringing out their forces to fight another day.

The Ukrainian forces will be moving up steadily to Kherson, they're in the hinterland of the city already.

But they are being cautious because they're saying first of all that there could be booby traps or mines, and more seriously than that, now that the Russians have crossed the river into their new fortifications, they're still only a couple of miles away and well in artillery range.

There have been concerns raised by the spokespeople for the southern commander of the Ukrainian armed forces, saying that they're preparing for a big bombardment into the city from the Russian-controlled side.

So they will not want to expose too many of their troops or civilians to that.

Image source, Reuters/Maxar

In its latest assessment of the situation on the ground, the UK Ministry of Defence, external (MoD) says it's "highly likely" Russian troops destroyed road and rail bridges over the Dnipro river as part of their retreat.

Images emerged yesterday showing that the main river crossing out of Kherson - the Antonivsky bridge - had partially collapsed. It remains unclear how the damage was caused.

The Russian withdrawal from Kherson was formally announced on Wednesday, but the MoD says it's likely that it started as early as 22 October when Russian-appointed officials urged civilians to leave the city.

"There is a realistic possibility that Russian military equipment and forces in civilian attire had been evacuating in conjunction with the 80,000 stated evacuated civilians in recent weeks," it says.

The MoD also says it's likely Russia is still attempting to evacuate forces from other parts of the region across the river to defensible positions on the eastern bank.

"Kherson was the only regional capital city captured since February by Russian forces, so the withdrawal brings significant reputational damage," it adds.

"The withdrawal is a public recognition of the difficulties faced by Russian forces on the west bank of the Dnipro River."

The MoD adds it's likely that Ukraine has retaken large areas of the Kherson region on the west bank of the river, and that its forces are now largely in control of the city of Kherson itself.

People gathered across Ukraine last night to celebrate Russia's withdrawal from Kherson:

Image source, AFP

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Alexei Sandakov

The UK's Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, external says Russia's retreat from Kherson marks "another strategic failure" for Moscow.

In a statement, he says: "In February, Russia failed to take any of its major objectives except Kherson.

"Now with that also being surrendered, ordinary people of Russia must surely ask themselves: 'What was it all for?'."

Wallace says the Russian army has suffered a huge loss of life as a result of their illegal invasion and has only achieved international isolation and humiliation.

He finishes by assuring Ukraine it will continue to have the support of the UK and the international community.