Timothy Morales was captured in the southern city of Kherson in Ukraine during the Russian occupation. To evade the Russian soldiers, he rarely went out, changed apartments and pretended to be Irish. Timothy, a teacher by profession, managed to send his 10-year-old daughter to safety, but was trapped in the occupied Harson
Timothy Morales, an American English teacher, hid from the Russian military and secret police throughout the eight-month occupation of the city of Kherson in southern Ukraine, fearing that his nationality would make him a target. He appeared in public only after the Ukrainian army liberated the city last week.
He stayed at home to avoid Russian patrols, and to pass the time watched movies on his laptop. On sunny days, he walked in a small walled courtyard. Afraid to be seen, he peeked cautiously behind curtains, watching the Russians enter from across the street, he told The New York Times.
“I had moments of despair,” Morales said in an interview from the main square in Kherson, where he now walks openly with ribbons in yellow and blue, Ukraine’s national colors. “I knew at some point this day would come,” he added. After the liberation, Kherson remained a gloomy and dark city, without electricity, water or heating. Most of its inhabitants fled months ago, and the retreating Russians took with them anything of value they could carry.
But for Morales, 56, the worst is behind him, no more cat-and-mouse games with the Russians. He grew up in Banbury, England, lived for years in Oklahoma City, worked teaching English literature and opened an English-language school in Kherson before the Russian invasion in February.
He tried once to escape, but turned back when he saw tanks firing on the road ahead. He managed to send his 10-year-old daughter to safety, traveling with his ex-wife, but was unable to get out himself. “I didn’t want to risk my passport.”
Morales feared that Russian soldiers would arrest him just because he was American. The Russians entered Kherson in early March, and soon soldiers were patrolling the streets and officers of the Federal Security Service, the agency that replaced the KGB, were looking for members of an underground pro-Ukrainian guerrilla movement.
Relatives of his ex-wife, who is Ukrainian, brought him food, and he sometimes shopped at a grocery store where he met the cashier, a young woman he trusted not to betray him because of her pro-Ukrainian views.
In September he entered his yard and saw Russian soldiers pointing guns through the barbed wire of the gate. He rushed in and locked the door behind him. A search party soon arrived. He came face to face with an officer from the Russian Federal Security Service. Morales, who spoke Russian but not well enough to convince that he was a local, told the Russian officer that he was an Irishman named Timothy Joseph, teaching English in the city and had lost his passport. The secret police left. The neighbor, an elderly woman, helped with the ruse and told the secret police they had no reason to suspect him.
He fled to another apartment and did not return to the search location until after the city was liberated, lest the secret police return. He passed the time watching movies he had downloaded to his laptop before the invasion.
As he walked the streets, he feared meeting acquaintances, especially among older people, who seemed less aware of the danger of the Russians and would sometimes shout out friendly greetings – which put him in grave danger. But his friends or neighbors did not betray him.
But over time the Russian army disintegrated. Discipline loosened and the soldiers seemed more disorganized, and they often drove in stolen local cars rather than army vehicles.
“Over time, they became dumber,” he said. In the last month, he noticed that soldiers who stole expensive cars, took these vehicles away from Harson, further from the front line. The disappearance of the expensive cars that were looted, according to him, “gave me hope.”
After the liberation of the city he saw a passing car with a Ukrainian flag flying from an antenna. “I knew the Russians were gone,” he said. Morales joined the celebration in the city’s main square, greeting Ukrainian soldiers as they entered the city without a fight, driving in pickup trucks and jeeps. As happy as he is to free the city, he said, he plans to leave now.