«We do not have electricity, nor water, nor gas, but we are free and that is the most important thing. Little by little we will recover the rest”, are the words of Ludmila, who waits in a long queue in the Plaza de la Libertad in Kherson for the distribution of humanitarian aid. In a week, this city, capital of the province of the same name in southern Ukraine, has gone from being part of the Russian Federation to being once again under the control of kyiv. The change came after nine months of occupation and was consummated when the last Kremlin troops left the western part of the town to cross the Dnieper River and entrench themselves on the other bank.
Now Kherson is free, but the Ukrainian Army has closed the exit of civilians because the intelligence services are working to capture possible Russian collaborators who may have stayed behind to commit sabotage. “They are a more dangerous weapon than a missile, which is why they must be located in time and canceled,” military sources in the city reported.
“On the afternoon of the 10th they destroyed the power plant and then they left at 4:57 in the morning, they crossed in barges. I saw them from my balcony because I live next to the Antonivka bridge. I don’t think they will come back because this has been a severe defeat, they don’t have enough strength to cross the river and return to this shore”, says Misha, a furniture businessman who has not left the city since February.
“The Russians and Ukrainians never came to agree on an exit and entry corridor for civilians and it was not safe at all, the route to Mikolaiv was a combat zone and anything could happen,” says Misha. The kyiv authorities offer voluntary evacuation to the elderly and to those residents whose houses have been damaged by attacks by Moscow troops.
The route to Mikolaiv is a 65-kilometre road whose main road is blocked, so you have to resort to rural roads and be very careful not to leave them because the Russians have left the place riddled with mines, according to the Ukrainian military. The scenery on either side of the road is devastated villages.
At the entrance to Kherson, it is striking that the city is intact, there is hardly any destruction. Asked about it, the Ukrainian officials assure that “this shows that we did not bomb our cities, but now we fear a Russian revenge and that they will begin to punish the city from the other shore. You have to be prepared.” The roar of the drums is constant in the sky of this city where no one forgets that 70% of the province’s territory is still under Russian rule.
Distribution of humanitarian aid to residents of Jershon town while others charge their mobiles on generators. /
One week after the Russian withdrawal, Freedom Square has become the epicenter of life. That is where the thousands of civilians who remain in the city go every day to wait for the trucks that arrive with all kinds of help, charge their mobile phones in the generators installed in tents, exchange their Russian phone cards for Ukrainian ones, attend the concerts that are organized at the foot of the old pedestal where the statue of Lenin was or see the politicians who, like the president, Volodimir Zelenski, come to celebrate the greatest victory of Ukraine in this war. Before the conflict there were 280,000 people, now it is a mystery to know how many remain.
food delivery
“We help our people with all the means we have, but we need Europe and the United States to maintain their arms support, it is the only way to defeat Russia,” asks Pavlo Moroz, representative of a well-known brand of chicken meat that has arrived in Kherson with two trucks loaded with tons of breasts. A tray is distributed per person and the families wait in full to receive one per head. All help is necessary.
“Will they let me call my son?” Ivan does not have a cell phone, he has a number written down in a notebook and he gives it to this special envoy to make the call. The conversation lasts less than a minute. Enough to tell his people that he is alive and that he does not intend to leave Kherson. «I stay because I think there is an agreement between Zelensky and Russia. Ukraine once again supplies Crimea with water and in return Moscow leaves this city,” he muses aloud before heading with his cane to the long queue that presides over Freedom Square, a place where happiness is perceived despite the harshness of life after the occupation.
The IAEA denounces explosions at the Zaporizhia nuclear plant
The International Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA) team deployed at the Zaporizhia power plant reported “explosions in an important area of the nuclear power plant.” The agency’s director, Mariano Grossi, described what happened as “unacceptable” and asked “whoever is behind this to stop immediately because he is playing with fire.” Grossi’s proposal to create a security zone around the plant is not accepted by the Russians and Ukrainians and such a sensitive place remains in the middle of the line of fire.
The largest power plant in Europe has been under Moscow control since the beginning of the war and both sides accuse each other of attacking the area. In this case, it was Moscow that blamed Ukraine for launching more than twenty “large-caliber projectiles”, which would have hit between blocks 4 and 5 and reached the roof of a “special building”, according to the Ministry of Defense. The Russian operator Rosenergoatom now manages the plant and assured that, despite the impacts, no increase in radiation has been detected.
The nuclear threat hovering over the war in Ukraine has a double face. On the one hand, there is the possibility of the use of atomic weapons, on the other, a disaster in some of the nuclear plants located on the front, such as the one in Zaporizhia. The six reactors have been shut down since September 11, but on several occasions disaster has come close to being cut off from the electricity they need constantly to keep the atomic fuel inside cool.