They poured onto the streets of Kherson early Saturday, hugging police officers and waving the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag to celebrate the city's second day of liberation.
In a separate message on Friday, the documentary filmmaker said he was in downtown Kherson when a vehicle carrying Ukrainian soldiers swept by that afternoon.
Residents celebrate after Russian forces evacuated Kherson, Ukraine on Friday.
Elsewhere, Russian state news agency Tass quoted Aleksandr Fomin, an official in Kherson’s Kremlin-appointed administration on Saturday as saying that Henichesk, a city on the Azov Sea some 125 miles southeast of Kherson city, would serve as the region’s “temporary capital” after the withdrawal.
But it did not “change the underlying factors that will eventually mean Russian or Ukrainian success,” he added.