Ukrainian soldiers take position during fights with Russian forces near Maryinka, Donetsk region, Ukraine, on Friday. Libkos/AP hide caption
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Hospital staff take care of orphaned children at the children's regional hospital maternity ward in Kherson, southern Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2022. Throughout the war in Ukraine, Russian authorities have been accused of deporting Ukrainian children to Russia or Russian-held territories to raise them as their own. Bernat Armangue/AP hide caption
Cars leave Kherson, southern Ukraine, Saturday, Nov. 26, 2022. Fleeing shelling, hundreds of civilians on Saturday streamed out of the southern Ukrainian city whose recapture they had celebrated just weeks earlier. Bernat Armangue/AP hide caption
Liudmyla, left, embraces her granddaughter, Ania, who arrived Saturday on the first Ukrainian Railways train to reach liberated Kherson, Ukraine. The train from Kyiv arrived to jubilation and tears. Carol Guzy for NPR hide caption
A burned cot in a police station in Kherson on Wednesday. Kherson residents say Russians used the police station to detain and torture violators of curfew and people suspected of collaborating with Ukrainian authorities. Pete Kiehart for NPR hide caption
Screams from Russia's alleged torture basements still haunt Ukraine's Kherson
Local people react to a volunteer from Odesa distributing aid on the main square in front of the Regional Administration Building in Kherson on Wednesday. Pete Kiehart for NPR hide caption
Hanna Malyar, Ukraine's deputy defense minister (center), signs a Ukrainian flag belonging to a local resident in Kherson on Monday. "Ukraine's success depends on two points," Malyar told NPR. "First our strength, our ability to fight. And second, the weapons that we receive from our partners," referring to the United States and other Western nations. Jason Beaubien/NPR hide caption
Ukrainians dance in Kherson's streets at the end of Russia's months-long occupation
A man hugs a Ukrainian soldier as local residents gather to celebrate the liberation of Kherson on Sunday. AFP/Getty Images hide caption
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, surrounded by his guards, walks on central square during his visit to Kherson on Monday. Ukrainian Presidential Press Office/AP hide caption
Col. Roman Kostenko liberated his home village in Kherson last week. Russian troops occupied his childhood home for months. They took his body armor and medals and left a grenade and a vulgar message on an outside wall. Frank Langfitt/NPR hide caption
An elderly woman walks in the southern Ukrainian village of Arkhanhelske, outside Kherson, on Nov. 3. The Russians occupied the village until recently. Now Ukrainian forces are moving into villages where the Russians left. The Russians said they completed their withdrawal from Kherson on Friday, marking a major victory for Ukraine. Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Russia retreats from Kherson. Why is the U.S. nudging Ukraine on peace talks?
Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-backed Kherson administration, in his office in Kherson on July 20. A portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin is on the wall behind him. AFP/Getty Images hide caption
The Ukrainian artillery battery of the 59th Mechanized Brigade fires a howitzer at points controlled by Russian troops in Kherson Oblast, Ukraine on Saturday. Metin Aktas/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images hide caption
Russia says it's withdrawing from the key city of Kherson, but Ukraine is skeptical
A Ukrainian artilleryman fires a howitzer at a position on the front line near Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region, on Oct. 31. Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
A resident looks out the window holding a candle for light inside her house during a power outage, in Borodyanka, Kyiv region, Ukraine, Thursday. Airstrikes cut power and water supplies to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians on Tuesday, part of what the country's president called an expanding Russian campaign to drive the nation into the cold and dark. Emilio Morenatti/AP hide caption
Russian forces raised a Soviet-era flag in Kherson after capturing the southern Ukrainian city early in the current war. Ukraine carried out new attacks in the Kherson region on Monday, raising the possibility that it is launching a counteroffensive. This photo was taken on May 20 at the World War II memorial in Kherson. Andrey Borodulin/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
The Kherson region of Ukraine has been under control of the Russian forces since the early days of the invasion. AP hide caption
A young man attempts to escape Russian-occupied Ukraine — then he goes silent
Ukrainian soldiers led NPR's team into the forest in the "gray zone" where they dug one of the defensive trenches used to stall Russia's advance. Brian Mann/NPR hide caption
Inna Kravchenko, 52, and her mother, Raïsa Kozlova, 75, moments after crossing by bike from Russian-occupied territory in the Kherson region to the Ukrainian-controlled village of Zelenodolsk. They were able to bring three bags of belongings but fear their house they left behind will be destroyed by Russian soldiers. Emily Feng/NPR hide caption
Ukrainian villagers flee Russian-occupied Kherson on foot, bike and wheelchair
Smoke rises this week in the city of Sievierodonetsk during heavy fighting between Ukrainian and Russian troops, in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas. Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Finland's President Sauli Niinisto speaks during a press conference with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the Presidential Palace on Wednesday in Helsinki, Finland. Niinisto and Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin said Thursday in a joint statement that Finland must apply for NATO membership without delay. Frank Augstein/WPA Pool/Getty Images hide caption