It's a reconquest of territory that could boost the morale of Volodymyr Zelensky's troops.
Ukrainians have regained control of the entire Kyiv region after Russian forces withdrew from key towns near the capital, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Maliar announced on Saturday.
The localities "Irpin, Boutcha, Gostomel and the entire kyiv region have been liberated from the invader", she said on Facebook.
All these towns were devastated by the fighting that raged there after the start of the Russian invasion on February 24.
The Ukrainians declared on Monday that they had reconquered Irpin, in Russian hands since the end of February.
At least 200 of the inhabitants of this small city in the northwest suburbs of the capital have been killed since the start of the Russian invasion, said Wednesday its mayor Oleksandre Markouchine.
Ірпінь, Гостомель, Буча після звільнення від російських окупантів.
📌02.04.2022 pic.twitter.com/CSR4Eu2GcF
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) April 2, 2022
Demining operations were still underway there on Saturday, emergency services said, according to which 643 explosive devices have been deactivated there since it fell back into Ukrainian hands.
And an AFP team was able to go to Boutcha on Saturday, also very recently "liberated" and which had been inaccessible to the press for almost a month.
Russian withdrawal and Ukrainian counterattack
Nearly 300 people in total had to be buried "in mass graves" in this city, also at the northwestern gates of kyiv, its mayor Anatoly Fedorouk told AFP on the same day.
An AFP journalist saw the bodies of at least 20 men in civilian clothes lying in the street there on Saturday.
Read alsoWar in Ukraine: Kherson, Irpin... why the Ukrainian counter-offensive is bearing fruit
Gostomel, also northwest of the capital, hosts the Antonov military airport, which was attacked by Russian forces on February 25, the day after the start of their offensive in Ukraine.
The mayor of Gostomel had been killed by the Russian army on March 7, the twelfth day of the invasion of Ukraine.
"Yuri Illitch Prylipko died while distributing bread and medicine to the sick, and comforting the wounded," wrote the city of Gostomel in a statement on its official Facebook page.
The objective of this "rapid withdrawal" of Russian troops from the kyiv and Cherniguiv regions in northern Ukraine is a redeployment of these soldiers to the east and south, the Ukrainian government said on Saturday.