Joy turns to fear as battle rages over liberated Ukraine city of Kherson

Those who can are hurrying to leave as the liberated Ukrainian city finds itself on the front line of an artillery war.

An elderly woman waiting to board an evacuation train in Kherson this week. Picture: Chris Mcgrath/Getty Images/The Times

Kherson railway station is packed with people dressed for the cold, but among the crowd of fleeces a 71-year old lady named Tatiana stands out for elegance and style. She wears a grey winter coat, smart brown shoes and clutches a black handbag, and she weeps as she tells a story of fear and frustration.

For eight months, she lived under the Russian occupation of Kherson, the only one of Ukraine’s regional capitals to be captured by the Russians since the full-scale invasion began in February.

On November 11, the occupiers pulled out and the Ukrainian army rolled into the city to be welcomed by jubilant locals. But now, less than a fortnight later, the people of Kherson are hurrying to get out as soon as possible.

People wait to board an evacuation train heading to Kyiv on Wednesday. Picture: Roman Pilipey/EPA/The Times

“I lived here throughout the Russian occupation, and we survived as best we could,” Tatiana says. “I was very happy when I saw the Ukrainian flag flying again. But there are explosions all the time – last night I was almost deaf with the explosions. I want to go to my sister in Vltava but I can’t get a ticket.”

As she speaks, another artillery volley can be heard in the middle distance.

As a military and psychological coup, the liberation of Kherson is difficult to over-estimate. After a crudely rigged referendum on union with Russia, Moscow formally annexed the Kherson region in September. President Putin declared that its people “are becoming our citizens – forever.” A month-and-a-half later, Ukraine reclaimed them.

Excited commentary speculated about the possibility of Ukrainian forces driving over the Dnipro river and being “in Crimea by Christmas”, taking back the peninsula that was annexed by Moscow in 2014.

A woman wipes blood from an ambulance stretcher used to transport an injured man after a Russian attack. Picture: Bernat Armangue/AP/The Times

But in a bitter irony, Kherson has been liberated from Russian forces only to find itself the new front line in an intensifying artillery war.

All day and night, both sides exchange shells in a duel across the Dnipro.

For the most part, they are firing at one another’s military positions but, as Russian shells whine audibly overhead, the potential for civilian casualties is obvious. The local government reports 62 artillery attacks on the city since Monday.

The Ukrainian armed forces predict that it will get worse. They are pleading with the 100,000 or so people who remain in the city to move.

“The Kherson defence forces insist people should leave because the Russians will intensify the shelling,” said Captain Dmytro Pletenchuk, a military spokesman. “Kherson is the front line and civilians cannot help the armed forces. They are just a burden on medical and logistical resources. We are adamant that they have to leave.”

A boy at a former Russian checkpoint as locals celebrated the city’s liberation 12 days ago. Picture: AFP/Getty Images/The Times

Not everyone is prepared to follow this advice. In Kherson’s main square, in front of the town hall, the local government has erected a tent where people can register for free buses to the relative safety of the city of Mykolaiv, a two-hour drive north.

When they set out yesterday (Thursday) morning, the buses ended up in a mile-long queue of cars waiting to pass through the checkpoint out of the city.

By contrast, the afternoon train from Kyiv had only three arriving passengers. Viktoria, one of the municipal employees who is drawing up the evacuation lists, insists that there is no reason to abandon Kherson.

“We’ve got no infrastructure anyway, so it can’t get worse,” she says. “We’ve got plenty of generators, and hosepipes for water, and lots of humanitarian aid. The presence of the Ukrainian army warms us.”

As she speaks there are more explosions across the river. “I hear that, of course,” she says. “If it gets like Mariupol, we’ll leave. Otherwise, no – I’m not going to leave until the water is coming up over my head.”

Local residents celebrate the liberation of Kherson. Picture: AFP/Getty Images/The Times

Kherson fell to Russia in March after a relatively brief battle, avoiding the fate of Mariupol, 230 miles to the east, where Ukrainian forces held out in the Azovstal steelworks and where Russian bombardment reduced much of the centre of the city to rubble.

Still, the eight-month occupation was a traumatic experience for many of those who remained, including Tatiana. She remembers the trouble she had buying food and obtaining medicines, including the drops that she needs for her eyes. “I’m almost blind without them,” she says. “I’ve had to make them myself out of vodka.”

Neighbours offered her a place on a bus out of the city and into Ukraine-controlled territory. However, she could not afford the bribes that would have been required at each of the 36 Russian checkpoints on the way out.

Today her escape from the city is frustrated by technology. “They told me to buy tickets on the website, but I can’t do that,” she says, holding up a pre-internet Nokia phone. “I live alone on the sixth floor and there’s no electricity, no water, no gas.”

The Ukrainian musician Kolya Serga in Kherson's Freedom Square. Picture: Ed Ram/Reuters/The Times

The dream of a rapid onward drive by Ukrainian forces across the Dnipro has evaporated. Apart from attempting to destroy Russian positions on the far side, they are engaged in a fight for the Kinburn Spit, a strategic strip of sand and low vegetation that juts into the Black Sea, west of Kherson.

There are reports that Russian forces formerly stationed in the liberated city have been redeployed to the eastern Donbas region where Russia controls the most Ukrainian territory and where fighting continues along a generally static front line.

This week, Russia took up the weapon that may turn out to be one of its most effective in the months ahead – the winter cold. Kherson residents reported that Russian soldiers tore down electricity lines, as well as mobile phone towers, before their retreat from the city.

A member of the Ukrainian military, 59th Brigade, takes on new supplies in a tank. Picture: Chris McGrath/Getty Images/The Times

On Wednesday, they inflicted similar punishment on the rest of the country, with 70 cruise missile attacks. Some 10 people were killed, six of them in an apartment building in the Kyiv region.

Tens of millions more were hit by the nationwide power cuts caused by damage to power stations and electricity infrastructure. It was the fifth such big Russian attack and the cumulative effect made it the most damaging so far.

The government has established local “invincibility centres” where citizens can find electricity, heat, water and communication networks.

They will struggle to meet the needs of the whole country. Liberated Kherson’s darkness, cold and isolation are spreading to other, bigger cities, and places of light and warmth are becoming fewer.

The Times