Kherson’s Long Road to Liberation and Healing

Few things can prepare you for the experience of visiting a city that has just been liberated from a brutal and unwanted foreign occupation.

On the streets of Kherson, the scars of eight months of Russian military rule are still fresh. Remnants of hastily dismantled checkpoints dot crossroads, and demolished buildings on the approach to the city reflect heavy fighting on what until recently was one of Ukraine’s most active fronts. It tells a story. Billboards with Russian propaganda slogans describing Kherson’s “century with Russia” and promoting the unjust referendum that led to Moscow’s official annexation of the city in late September are still circulating.

Amid all this, there are people.

Citizens of Kherson, who were freed from occupation just three days before the CBC visited on Monday, are now filling the streets again. Visibly beaming, they smile and wave to those who enter the city with Ukrainian flags and posters.

Fyodor Lobianin, 39, who came to the city center with his wife Alena and daughter Natalia, chanted “For eight months this is a dead city” to join the crowd celebrating their newfound freedom. It was quiet and empty,” he said. “With checkpoints everywhere, you feel like you could get shot at any moment. ”

The Fountain of Delights on display makes it very clear that many in Kherson agree with him. Expressing yourself in a way that risks imprisonment or more. The “ZSU!” chant — an acronym for the Ukrainian military — is the most popular slogan.

“We weren’t thinking [the liberation] Lobyanin says when her daughter is handed blue and yellow balloons. The guys at ZSU are so smart and awesome,” he says.

The recapture of Kherson, the only provincial capital under Russian control since the invasion, has been a strategic priority for Ukraine. The city was not only a major industrial center before the war, but also controls some of the natural resources available in Crimea.

Under Russian rule, everyday life in the city came to a complete halt. Residents ventured through a maze of checkpoints and threats of detention, but only a few times a week. Thoughts of ordinary existence melted away.

“I haven’t worked a single day in the last eight months,” says Lobyanin, who was the quality control manager at the Danone factory in the city. “What to do? Even if we wanted to, the Russians looted the plants in our first week here and shelled them before that. Trying to survive is the best anyone can manage was.”

As such, the feeling of victory is often overwhelming.

“It is impossible to convey how unexpected everything was,” says Nikolai Korzi, 57.

His wife, Ekaterina, is wiping away tears. “I want to cry all the time,” she says. “Three days in a row, I still can’t believe everything is okay again.”

long road to recovery

Despite the celebration, there is still a long road to recovery ahead. About 280,000 people lived in the city before the Russian invasion.

It is unclear exactly how many remain, and reports from Occupied Ukraine authorities and media suggest that more than half of the residents here have fled.

The city itself has been returned to Ukraine, but it still has no electricity or running water. Critical infrastructure has been damaged and Russian forces still occupy about 70% of the surrounding area, according to the Associated Press.

But for the long-awaited guests who arrived at the square on Monday, the focus was on the future.

See | Zelensky calls Kherson’s victory ‘the beginning of the end of the war’:

As onlookers cheered, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived and stepped out of the car in his signature green jacket. Despite Russia’s position on the opposite bank of the Dnieper, he saluted the playing of the Ukrainian national anthem before making a few remarks of his own.

“This is the beginning of the end of the war.” Standing in the center of the city, the decree of Zelenskyy.

The Ukrainian president announced that “step by step, we are heading to all temporarily occupied territories.”

But the joy of the moment cannot erase the deep scars of occupation.

“When you see these animals, you understand that there are no other words,” says Ekaterina Korzi, describing the Russian soldiers who patrolled the streets.

“They are pure crap — dirty, vile, beasts. One day I went to the market and saw it there. [Russian soldiers] Back in Russia, I was buying toys for my children. I told them, ‘You came here to destroy us and buy gifts for your children now?’ she says.

“During the occupation, the city was often quiet. That was actually the worst thing,” added her husband. “When we heard the shooting, the bombing, we knew the soldiers were close. Hope was greater than fear.”

fear of conscription

The people of Kherson did not want a fate like their former compatriots who were forced to serve as Russian soldiers in the long-occupied Luhansk and Donetsk.

“One day, the Russians started telling us to mobilize the young people here and let them serve. [in the Russian army]” says 30-year-old Maxim Zelenyi.

“I said, ‘If the Russians give me a gun, I’ll take it and I’ll shoot them with it right away. I caught you. [and conscripted them].

“I was lucky,” Zeleny says.

The Russians ruled the city with terror, but this was still not enough for the appointed authorities to feel safe, people here say.

“Yesterday our soldiers entered the island. [Vladimir] Sardo was alive,” Zelenyy said of the Russian-installed political administrator who headed the occupation regime. [in the Dnipro river] Only three times to Kherson himself. We used to joke that his island was an independent republic. ”

Saldo fled the city last week. He is now in the town of Genichesk, where the Kherson government in Russia moved. His fate, Russian officials say, is still better than that of his more visible lieutenant, Kirill Stremsov. car accident Hours before the announcement of the Russian withdrawal from Kherson on November 9th.

The other alleged collaborators are on the run. Some flee with the retreating Russians, others remain in the city. One of them was Zeleny’s sister.

“My sister was always pro-Russian,” he says. “She lived in Vladivostok for many years, she worked in a fish factory. When the Russians came here, she actively helped them. [Ukrainian] Governments can help identify potential troublemakers,” he adds.

Zeleny says he hasn’t seen his sister since the Russians left and doesn’t know where she is now.

He wasn’t the only one tracking people’s loyalties.

30-year-old sales manager Igor Popov waves the Ukrainian flag he’s been hiding for the past eight months. It was a particularly dangerous act in his apartment.

“Of course, my only wish was liberation.”

“We fought traitors as best we could,” he said, explaining his role in the Telegram group that tracks collaborators. “The woman who lived on my floor worked for the Russian regime. She had a Russian flag hanging in her house. I already told them. [Ukrainian] Talk to the police about her, ”says Popov.

He believes that women and people like her should be treated legally.

“She will be brought to justice,” he says. “We are a kind nation. We are not savages like them.”

It can all come later. The important thing for now, says Popov, is that Kherson is free.

“I had a birthday during the occupation, my 30th,” says Popov. “Of course, my only wish was liberation, and our comrades made it happen.”