The scars of eight months of Russian military rule are still fresh on the streets of Kherson. The remnants of hastily dismantled checkpoints can be seen at intersections, while demolished buildings on the approaches to the city speak of heavy fighting on what was, until recently, one of Ukraine’s most active front lines. Signs bearing Russian propaganda slogans, describing Kherson’s “centuries with Russia” or advertising the illegal referendum in which Moscow formally annexed the city in late September are still circulating. In all this, there is the world. Residents of Kherson, freed from occupation just three days before the CBC’s visit on Monday, are once again filling the streets. Visibly beaming, they smile and wave at anyone entering the city, many with Ukrainian flags and posters in hand. “For eight months, this was a dead city — silent, empty,” says Fyodor Lobyanin, 39, who has come downtown with his wife Alyona and daughter Natalia to join the crowds celebrating their new freedom. “When there are checkpoints everywhere, you feel like you could be shot at any moment. But the fear is gone. We can finally breathe again.” Residents of the region are celebrating after Russia retreated from Kherson, the only capital of the province captured by Moscow. (Yevhenii Zavhorodnii/Reuters) The source of the jubilation on display makes it abundantly clear that many in Kherson agree with him. The city’s aptly named Freedom Square is packed with hundreds of locals, expressing themselves in ways that until recently would have risked detention or worse. Chants of “ZSU!” — the acronym for the Ukrainian Armed Forces — is the most popular slogan. “We didn’t think [the liberation] it would come so fast,” says Lobyanin, as his daughter is handed a blue-yellow balloon. “We always knew they would come for us, but this was really something. The kids at ZSU — they are so smart, the best,” he says. Recapturing Kherson, the only provincial capital to come under Russian control since the invasion, was a strategic priority for Ukraine. Not only was the city an important industrial center before the war, but it also controls some of the natural resources available on the Crimean peninsula. Fyodor Lobyanin with his wife Alyona and daughter Elena in Kherson a few days after the city was retaken by Ukrainian soldiers. (Neil Hauer/CBC) Under Russian rule, daily life in the city had come to a standstill. Residents ventured out through the maze of checkpoints and the threat of detention a few times a week. Any thought of a normal existence melted away. “I haven’t worked a day in the last eight months,” says Lobyanin, a former quality control manager at the city’s Danone factory. “How could I? Even if we wanted to, the Russians ransacked the plant in their first week here and bombed it before that. Trying to survive was the best anyone could do.” So the feelings of victory are often overwhelming. “It’s impossible to convey how unexpected everything was,” says Nikolai Korz, 57. His wife, Ekaterina, breaks down in tears. “I want to cry all the time,” she says. “For the third day in a row, I still can’t believe that everything is okay again.”
Long road to recovery
Despite the celebration, there is still a long way to go for recovery. About 280,000 people lived in the city before the Russian invasion. Exactly how many remain is unclear, with Ukrainian officials and media reports throughout the occupation suggesting that more than half the residents here had left. And although the city itself has been returned to Ukraine, it is still without electricity or running water. Key infrastructure has been destroyed and Russian forces still occupy about 70 percent of the surrounding area, according to the Associated Press. But for the long-awaited guest who arrived on the square on Monday, the focus was on the future. WATCHES | Zelenskyy calls the Kherson victory “the beginning of the end of the war”:
Zelensky visits Kherson to signal victory for the troubled region
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy walked the streets of the newly liberated city of Kherson on Monday to mark a major victory against Russian forces. But the region still faces significant challenges. As onlookers cheer, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives, stepping out of his car in his signature green jacket. Despite Russian positions just a few kilometers away, on the other side of the Dnipro River, he salutes for the rendition of Ukraine’s national anthem before giving a few remarks of his own. “This is the beginning of the end of war” Decree Zelenskyy, standing in the center of the city. “Step by step, we are coming to all temporarily occupied territories,” announced the president of Ukraine. But the joy of the moment cannot erase the deep scars of the occupation. People queue in a central square on November 16 as they wait for humanitarian aid after Russia’s retreat from Kherson. (Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters) “If you saw these animals, you would understand that there is no other word for them,” says Ekaterina Korzh, describing the Russian soldiers who used to patrol the streets. “They are pure scum—filthy, vicious, beasts. One day I went to the market and saw there that [Russian soldiers] they were buying toys for their children back in Russia. I said to them, “Bastards, you come here to destroy us and now you’re buying presents for your children?” says. “The city was very often quiet during the occupation and that was actually the worst,” adds her husband. “When we heard gunshots, shelling, we knew our soldiers were close. Hope was greater than fear.” A woman hugs a Ukrainian soldier in the city center after Russia retreated. (Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters)
Fear of conscription
The people of Kherson did not want a fate like that of their old compatriots in long-occupied Luhansk and Donetsk — forced to serve as Russian soldiers. “One day, the Russians started saying that they will mobilize the young guys here, that they will make them serve. [in the Russian army]”, says Maxim Zeleny, 30 years old. “I said: ‘If the Russians give me a gun, I will take it and use it immediately to shoot them. I didn’t get out much, but other guys got caught. [and conscripted them]. “I was lucky,” says Zeleny. Nikolai and Ekaterina Korz, overcome with emotion after months of living under occupation, talk about the fear they experienced before the city was retaken by Ukraine. (Neil Hauer/CBC) The Russians ruled the city out of fear, but that wasn’t enough to make their appointed authorities feel safe themselves, people here say. “Yesterday our soldiers entered the island where [Vladimir] Saldo lived,” Zeleny says, referring to the Russian-installed political administrator who led the occupation regime. “The whole time he was in charge, he left the island [in the Dnipro river] in Kherson itself only three times. We used to joke that his island was a separate republic.” Saldo left town last week. now it is in the city of Henichesk, where the Russian administration of Kherson has been relocated. His fate is still better than that of his most prominent deputy, Kirill Stremousov, who Russian authorities say is dead. car accident hours before the Russian withdrawal from Kherson was announced on November 9. Maxim Zeleny says he was lucky not to be drafted after Russia’s forced referendum on annexation of the city. (Neil Hauer/CBC) Other alleged collaborators remain at large: some flee with the retreating Russians, others in the city. One of them was Zeleny’s sister. “My sister has always been pro-Russian,” he says. “He lived in Vladivostok for years, working in a fish factory. When the Russians came here, he actively helped them: he told them the names of the people who worked for [Ukrainian] government, helping them identify people who might cause trouble,” 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 watching people’s faith. Igor Popov, a 30-year-old sales manager, waves a Ukrainian flag that he had hidden for the past eight months. This was a particularly dangerous act in his apartment building.
“My only desire, of course, was to be freed”
“We fought the traitors as best we could,” he says, describing his role in a Telegram group that monitored associates. “A woman who lived on my floor worked for the Russians, in their administration. She had the Russian flag hanging in her house. I have already told the [Ukrainian] police for her,” says Popov. He believes that the woman, and those like her, will be dealt with legally. “He will be tried,” he says. “We are a welcoming country, we are not barbaric like them.” All that can come later. For now, what’s important is that Kherson is free, Popov says. “I had my birthday during the occupation, in my 30s,” says Popov. “My only wish, of course, was freedom. And our children made it come true.”
