‘We survived’: Kherson’s newly liberated residents relieved but facing punishing hardships
- A week after Russian troops withdrew from Kherson leaving it devoid of basic infrastructure, signs of recovery slowly dot the city
- The population has dwindled to about 80,000 from its pre-war level near 300,000 and residents say it feels like there is ‘no one here any more’
A week since the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson was liberated, residents can’t escape reminders of the terrifying eight months they spent under Russian occupation: missing people, mines everywhere, closed shops and restaurants, a scarcity of electricity and water – and explosions day and night as Russian and Ukrainian forces battle just across the Dnieper River.
Despite these hardships, Kherson residents are expressing a mix of relief, optimism, and even joy – not least because of their regained freedom to express themselves at all.
“Even breathing became easier. Everything is different now,” said Olena Smoliana, a pharmacist whose eyes shone with happiness as she recalled the day Ukrainian soldiers entered the city.
Kherson’s population has dwindled to around 80,000 from its pre-war level near 300,000, but the city is slowly coming alive. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky triumphantly walked the streets on Monday, hailing Russia’s withdrawal – a humiliating defeat for Russian President Vladimir Putin – as the “beginning of the end of the war.”
Residents of Kherson talk about the “silent terror’’ that defined their occupation, which was different than the devastating military siege that turned other Ukrainian cities – such as Mariupol, Sievierodonetsk, and Lysychansk – to rubble.
Russian forces entered Kherson in the early days of the war from nearby Crimea, which it illegally annexed in 2014, and soon after that, it was occupied.