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Residents of Kherson have celebrated the end of Russia's eight-month occupation for the third straight day, even as they took stock of the extensive damage left behind in the southern Ukrainian city by the Kremlin's retreating forces.

A jubilant crowd gathered in Kherson's main square, despite the distant thumps of artillery fire that could be heard as Ukrainian forces pressed on with their effort to push out Moscow's invasion force.

"It's a new year for us now," said Karina Zaikina, 24, who wore on her coat a yellow-and-blue ribbon in Ukraine's national colours.

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"For the first time in many months, I wasn't scared to come into the city."

"Finally, freedom!" said 61-year-old resident Tetiana Hitina.

"The city was dead."

But even as locals rejoiced, the evidence of Russia's ruthless occupation was all around, and Russian forces still control some 70 per cent of the wider Kherson region.

With cellphone networks knocked out, Zaikina and others lined up to use a satellite phone connection set up for everyone's use in the square, enabling them to swap news with family and friends for the first time in weeks.

Downtown stores were shuttered.

With many people having fled the city during the Russian occupation, the city streets were thinly populated.

Many of the few people venturing out on Sunday (local time) carried yellow and blue flags.

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On the square, people lined up to ask soldiers to autograph their flags and rewarded them with hugs. Some wept.

More bleakly, Kherson is also without electricity or running water, and food and medical supplies are short.

Residents said Russian troops plundered the city, carting away loot as they withdrew last week.

They also wrecked key public infrastructure before retreating across the wide Dnieper River to its east bank.

One Ukrainian official described the situation in Kherson as "a humanitarian catastrophe."

"I don't understand what kind of people this is. I don't know why they did it," said resident Yevhen Teliezhenko, draped in a Ukrainian flag.

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Still, he said, "it became easier to breathe" once the Russians had gone.

"There is no better holiday than what's happening now," he declared.

Ukrainian authorities said the demining of critical infrastructure is under way in the city.

Reconnecting the electricity supply is the priority, with gas supplies already assured, Kherson regional governor Yaroslav Yanushevych said.

The Russian pullout marked a triumphant milestone in Ukraine's pushback against Moscow's invasion almost nine months ago.

In the past two months, Ukraine's military claimed to have retaken dozens of towns and villages north of the city of Kherson.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to keep up the pressure on Russian forces, reassuring the people in Ukrainian cities and villages that are still under occupation.

"We don't forget anyone; we won't leave anyone," he said.

Ukraine's retaking of Kherson was a significant setback for the Kremlin and the latest in a series of battlefield embarrassments.

It came some six weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed the Kherson region and three other provinces in southern and eastern Ukraine — in breach of international law — and declared them Russian territory.

The US embassy in Kyiv tweeted comments on Sunday by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who described the turnaround in Kherson as "an extraordinary victory" for Ukraine and "quite a remarkable thing."

The reversal came despite Putin's recent partial mobilisation of reservists, raising troop numbers by some 300,000.

That has been hard for the Russian military to digest.

"Russian military leadership is trying and largely failing to integrate combat forces drawn from many different organisations and of many different types and levels of skill and equipment into a more cohesive fighting force in Ukraine," commented the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, a think tank that tracks the conflict.

British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the Kremlin will be "worried" by the loss of Kherson but warned against underestimating Moscow.

"If they need more cannon fodder, that is what they'll be doing," he said.

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Ukrainian police called on residents to help identify collaborators with Russian forces.

Ukrainian police officers returned to the city on Saturday, along with public broadcasting services.

The national police chief of Ukraine, Ihor Klymenko, said about 200 officers were at work in the city, setting up checkpoints and documenting evidence of possible war crimes.

In what could perhaps be the next district to fall in Ukraine's march on territory annexed by Moscow, the Russian-appointed administration of the Kakhovka district, east of the city of Kherson, announced it was evacuating its employees.

"Today, the administration is the No. 1 target for Ukrainian attacks," said the Moscow-installed leader of Kakhovka, Pavel Filipchuk.

"We, as an authority, are moving to a safer territory, from where we will lead the district."

Kakhovka is located on the east bank of the Dnieper River, upstream of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station.

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Walkley Award-wining reporter Chris O'Keefe has been named as the new host of 2GB's Drive program, starting on January 9 next year.

The announcement comes after he filled in for the role in the past year.

"It's very rare to be given the chance to be a part of a radio station that has been broadcasting to our city for almost a century," O'Keefe said.

"The history is rich at 2GB, and I'm aware of the responsibility that legacy brings and delighted to be given the opportunity.

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"My past experience behind the mic has shown me that radio is deeply personal, and it has to be. We have a one on one conversation with hundreds of thousands Sydneysiders at the same time they are juggling kids, battling traffic, or in their kitchens cooking dinner – that's a serious privilege.

"Growing up in the suburbs in the St George area of Sydney and now with a young family, a big mortgage and a passionate Dragons supporter, I understand what's important in this town.

"I know what we care about, what we can have a laugh about, and what's worth fighting for. And more than anything, I've tried to build a reputation that when I tell you something is happening, you can take it to the bank."

O'Keefe, a political reporter for 9News, has won multiple awards for his work, with more than a decade of experience in TV news.

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His exposure of a deadly gas mix-up in the maternity ward of Bankstown Hospital earned him a Walkley Award in 2016.

He was named NSW Journalist of the Year in 2017, and has won five Kennedy Awards for his excellence in the field.

"If it's happening in Sydney, you'll hear it first on 2GB, and nobody has their finger on the pulse of our city more than Chris O'Keefe," 2GB content manager Luke Davis said.

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"Chris has proven to be a popular contributor and trusted news-breaker across our network and we can't wait to have him join 2GB in a full-time capacity. Get set Sydney, with Chris O'Keefe, it's going to be a fresh, informative and entertaining drive home in 2023."

O'Keefe started his career at Network Ten before moving to Nine.

He is married to Fox League broadcaster Yvonne Sampson, with whom he has a baby son, Henry.

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Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto won election to a second term representing Nevada on Saturday, defeating Republican Adam Laxalt to clinch the party's control of the chamber for the next two years of Joe Biden's presidency.

With Democratic Senator Mark Kelly's victory in Arizona on Friday, Democrats now hold a 50-49 edge in the Senate.

The party will retain control of the chamber, no matter how next month's Georgia runoff plays out, by virtue of Vice President Kamala Harris' tiebreaking vote.

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Democrats' hold on the Senate is a blow to Republicans' high hopes of wresting away control of Congress in a midterm election that typically favours the party out of power. It was still unclear which party would control the House of Representatives as counting continued in razor-tight races in California and a smattering of other states.

Cortez Masto, the first Latina in the Senate, was considered the most vulnerable Democratic senator in the midterm elections, and the Republican Party had high hopes of flipping the seat. But despite an influx of spending on attack ads from national GOP groups, Cortez Masto managed to secure her reelection bid.

Nevada's vote count took several days partly because of the mail voting system created by the state Legislature in 2020 that requires counties to accept ballots postmarked by Election Day if they arrive up to four days later. Laxalt had an early lead that dwindled after late-counted ballots came in from the state's population centres in Las Vegas and Reno.

Cortez Masto, the state's former two-term attorney general, focused her Senate campaign on the increasing threat to abortion access nationwide and worked to court the state's Spanish-speaking residents and hourly wage earners, pointing out her support of a permanent pathway to citizenship for "Dreamers" and regularly visiting union halls and workers' groups.

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Her fundraising far outpaced Laxalt's. She spent nearly US$47 million ($70 million) and had more than US$6 million ($8.9 million) in cash on hand through mid-October, according to OpenSecrets. Laxalt spent nearly US$13 million ($19 million) and had about US$3 million ($4 million) remaining during the same time.

Laxalt, a former Nevada attorney general himself who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2018, focused on rising inflation and a struggling economy for much of his campaign, attempting to tie voters' financial woes to policies advanced by Democrats in Congress and Biden.

Former President Donald Trump, who twice lost Nevada in his White House runs, came to the state twice to rally for Laxalt and other Republican candidates.

Democrats had an uphill battle given the nation's turbulent economy, and Nevada exemplified the party's challenges.

The state is one of the most diverse in the nation, and its largely working class population often lives paycheck to paycheck and has struggled with both inflation and the aftershocks of the shutdown of Las Vegas' tourist-based economy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Roughly three-fourths of Nevada voters said the country is headed in the wrong direction, and about 5 in 10 called the economy the most important issue facing the country, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of 2,100 of the state's voters.

Voters viewed the economy negatively, with VoteCast finding nearly 8 in 10 saying economic conditions are either not so good or poor. Only about 2 in 10 called the economy excellent or good. And about a third of voters said their families are falling behind financially.

But that didn't necessarily translate into anger at President Joe Biden or his party. About half considered inflation the most important issue facing the US, but they were evenly split over whether they think higher prices are due to Biden's policies or factors outside his control.

Nevada is also a famously live-and-let-live state, and Cortez Masto's message on preserving abortion rights resonated. According to VoteCast, 7 in 10 wanted the procedure kept legal in all or most cases.