Ukraine: Kherson residents relieved, start rebuilding

Kherson, Ukraine –

A week after the liberation of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, residents are still haunted by memories of the horrifying eight months they spent under Russian occupation.

People are missing. As Russian and Ukrainian forces battle across the Dnieper, mines are everywhere, shops and restaurants are closed, electricity and water are scarce, and explosions occur day and night.

Despite the difficulties, residents express mixed feelings of relief, optimism and even joy.

“I can breathe easier. Everything is different now,” said pharmacist Olena Smoliana, her eyes beaming with happiness as she remembered the day Ukrainian soldiers entered the city.

Kherson’s population has dwindled from pre-war levels of nearly 300,000 to around 80,000, but the city is slowly coming back to life. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky triumphantly walked the streets on Monday, hailing Russia’s withdrawal – a humiliating defeat for Russian President Vladimir Putin – as “the beginning of the end of the war.”

People are no longer afraid to leave their homes or worry that contact with Russian soldiers will lead to prisons or torture cells. They wear ribbons, charge their phones, fetch water, and talk to neighbors and relatives.

“If we survived the occupation, we will survive without any problems,” said Yulia Nenadishuk, 53, who has been stuck at home with her husband Oleksandr since the Russian invasion began. rice field.

The worst kind of deprivation was the lack of freedom, like being in a “cage”.

“I couldn’t say anything out loud and I didn’t speak Ukrainian,” said 57-year-old Oleksandr Nenadishuk.

Kherson residents speak of the “silent terrorism” that has defined their profession. This is unlike the devastating military sieges that have reduced other Ukrainian cities such as Mariupol, Ševiero Donetsk, and Lischensk to rubble.

Early in the war, Russian forces entered Kherson from the nearby Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014, and quickly captured the city. The city was the only regional capital occupied by Moscow after the invasion began on 24 February.

In Kherson, people mainly communicate in Russian. In the early days of the war, some residents were tolerant of their Russian-sympathetic neighbors, but there was a clear change during the occupation, said pharmacist Smoliana.

“Even speaking Russian is embarrassing,” she said. “They suppressed us emotionally and physically.”

Many fled the city, but some went missing.

Khrystyna Yuldasheva, 18, works in a shop across from a building used by Russian police as a detention center and where Ukrainian authorities are investigating allegations of torture and ill-treatment.

“There’s no one here anymore,” she told a woman who recently came looking for her son.

Others tried to leave but could not. “We tried to leave her three times, but all possible exits from the city were closed,” said Tetiana, 37.

Despite the euphoria that followed the withdrawal of the Russian army, the city of Kherson remains stagnant. Russian soldiers left cities without basic infrastructure such as water, electricity, transportation and communications.

Many shops, restaurants and hotels are still closed and many people are out of work. Residents were drawn downtown last week to take advantage of truckloads of groceries that had arrived from Ukrainian supermarket chains and Internet hotspots that had been installed.

Russian products can still be found in small shops that survived the occupation. And the streets are still adorned with banners promoting Russian propaganda such as “Ukraines and Russians are one country” and urging Ukrainians to get Russian passports.

Some Ukrainians swear loudly as they drive past the wreckage of war.

On Saturday, people eagerly awaited the arrival of the first train since the early days of the invasion in Kherson. I haven’t seen my wife since I left.

Desytniakov said he remained home to care for his ailing parents, holding a rose and peering anxiously over the platform for the arrival of a train to reunite his family.

“She would scold me for hating flowers,” he said of his wife. “But I’ll give it to her girlfriend anyway.”

Ludmila Olhouskaya didn’t meet anyone at the station, but went there to show her support.

“This is the beginning of a new life,” the 74-year-old said, wiping tears of joy from her cheeks.

According to Ukraine’s interior ministry, a major obstacle to bringing people back to Kherson and proceeding with reconstruction efforts will be the removal of all mines that the Russians have planted inside administrative offices and around critical infrastructure.

Undersecretary of the Interior Mary Akopian said, “We need demining here.” Kherson has a bigger mine problem than any other city Ukraine has recaptured from Russia, she said.

Akopian estimates that it will take years to completely demine the city and surrounding provinces. Already 25 people have died while clearing stranded mines and other explosives.

Before retreating, Russian soldiers looted shops and businesses and even museums. The Ukrainian government estimates that he stole 15,000 artifacts from the Kherson Regional Museum and transported them to the nearby Crimea.

“In fact there is nothing there,” Kirilo Tymoshenko, a senior official in Zelensky’s office, wrote on his telegram channel after a trip to the Kherson region. We killed, we mined, we robbed.”

The humiliating Russian retreat did not end the sounds of war in Kherson. About 70% of the larger Kherson region is still in Russian hands. Explosions can be heard regularly, but locals aren’t always sure if they’re due to demining operations or clashes between Russian and Ukrainian artillery.

Despite ongoing fighting nearby, the people of Kherson ignore the air raid sirens and crowd the streets to greet each other and feel safe and confident enough to thank the Ukrainian soldiers.

Like many of its inhabitants, the Nenadishkus do not frown when they hear a distant explosion, and they dislike complaining about other hardships they face.

“We are holding on. We are waiting for victory. No whining,” said Yulia Nenadishuk. “All of Ukraine,” added her husband. “This is the state we are in now.”

Sam Mednick contributed to this story.