An infernal screech fills the air, followed by a huge splash as I spot a Russian rocket smashing into the water about 100 metres in front of where our small speedboat is cruising along. I hit the deck and curl into a ball, as I hear other rockets flying towards us. For the first time in my life, I understand the phrase ‘sitting ducks’.
Floating in the water like this, we can’t run for cover, we can only bury our heads and pray. “I’ve just decided I’m going to ask my girlfriend to marry her next week, so we have to make it out of this!” says the Dutch correspondent next to me in the boat as he puts his hand on my shoulder.
In Kherson, death can come from the sky at any time. This time, it was a sunny afternoon as we explored the newly formed canals in the city that locals refer to as the ‘Venice from Hell’.
Last Tuesday morning, the dam of the Nova Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station 60 kilometers upstream from the city was destroyed, causing extreme flooding on the banks of the Dnipro River. The water was thick with pollutants, including motor oil, industrial chemicals and mines that had been washed from defensive positions on both riverbanks. Street signs, and the roofs of residential buildings, shops and gas stations poked up through the four metres of water that had flooded the streets. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are without access to drinking water.
Oliksiy, our unflappable boat driver, attempted to calm us down by reassuring us it was safer in the water than on land. On land, we were at risk of being ripped to shreds by flying shrapnel, whereas on the river, the water resistance would slow the jagged metal down. I’ve covered the war from all the frontlines, and the situation in Kherson is the scariest I’ve seen. We navigated the boat under the hull of a large container ship to shelter until the shelling finished, before we crept back to shore. En route, we passed a partially submerged billboard that said, “Kherson is Ukraine, We Thank the Armed Forces of Ukraine!” But Kherson has paid an extraordinary price for its liberation.
The situation in Kherson is the scariest I’ve seen
The most gruesome of all are the corpses. “Every Ukrainian town has a cemetery, and 80 of them have been washed up, causing bodies to float down the river,” says Sergio Sergeyev, a soldier based in the city of Kherson who is assisting with evacuation efforts. In a reminder of the region’s dark history, the head of a former invader, a German soldier from World War II, washed up on the shore still in its helmet.
When I was last in Kherson, I reported for the Evening Standard about the liberation of the occupied city after a punishing military campaign, but a shell landing next to our bus reminded us of the danger still facing the city. I warned that “Putin’s reign of terror is far from over for families on the ground”. Since that day in November, Kherson has suffered the rage of the Russian troops, who have shelled the city from mortar and artillery positions from across the river almost every day. Scores of civilians have been killed — on one horrific day in May, 23 people died when Russian forces shelled a railway station and a supermarket.
For the past week, Ukrainian authorities have been engaged in frantic efforts to evacuate people from the flooded regions, even launching daring raids to towns into enemy territory across the river. While UK and US intelligence have said that they cannot conclusively blame Russian forces, President Zelensky has pointed the finger squarely at Moscow and called for a robust international response. “We need an immediate and maximum global response to Russian terror. From the UN Security Council to every international institution. Every state, every leader. Russian terrorists must leave our entire territory, every metre of which they are trying to use for evil and disasters… no country in the world should be left alone against such terror.”
Those on the ground are less diplomatic, and believe they are being abandoned by the international community. “The United Nations is a shitty organisation, they just take our money...” says Sergeyev. “And please quote me on that.”
“It is an ecological disaster, but the UN, what does this organisation do? When the war starts, we think, this is a great organisation, they must save people from wars... from things like this, but now we see that Russians do anything they want. They [the UN] just say 'that’s awful' and that is all they do.”
Instead, the bulk of the risky evacuations and delivery of supplies are being done by local Ukrainian organisations, many of them run by volunteers on a shoestring budget. Ksenia Tomchyk, a coordinator of the organisation Base.ua, shared a terrifying video with me of Russian shelling hitting near her evacuation car, just a few kilometres outside of the city.
“A few days ago we got a couple of requests from a village called Kamyshany,” she says. “Russians are close. We knew from the locals that the village was shelled earlier in the morning, so we checked what we had to and left. While we were driving through the field, we saw an incoming [rocket] straight on the checkpoint we were heading to. While we took a moment to think, another strike hit the same place. It was easy to see the damage, but of course, we didn’t stop thinking they could strike one more time. Today we did the evacuation of seven people, including two kids. It was calm and all went fine, but the village is being shelled regularly and probably we were just lucky.”
The flooding comes against the backdrop of a major uptick in fighting on the country’s long-static frontlines. Ukraine is finally striking back against the Russian invaders and after months of preparations, the Armed Forces have launched a series of counterattacks in the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk and Zapporizhzhia.
Sergeyev celebrated his birthday last year under Russian occupation, and this one under Russian shelling. “We still have a lot of work to do before I celebrate next year on the banks of the Yalta,” he says, referring to the famous river in occupied Crimea, which is the main target of Ukraine’s counter-offensive. Not everything is going smoothly, and the Russians have been posting gloating videos that show them destroying some of Ukraine’s new Western technology, including German Leopard 2 Tanks and American Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles. If this Ukrainian offensive cannot force the Russians to retreat from the other side of the river, then Kherson’s agony looks set to continue.
Despite the extraordinary suffering inflicted on Kherson, residents believe the price of freedom remains worth it. “I lived the whole period of occupation in Kherson… After liberation, we were constantly attacked by various types of weapons. Artillery, tanks, MLZ, mortars, Shahed [drones]…” says local Svitlana Horieva.
“But for me, there is nothing scarier and heavier than occupation. The terrible feeling of lawlessness. We were outlawed by the occupier… we had no right to anything. At any moment we could be killed and robbed. Any Russian on the street could have checked your phone… they were kidnapping people on the street. A man could have walked into a store and never come back.”
She will stay in the city, come what may. “The shelling is unbelievably scary, but you understand that staying in the city is your choice. Whatever happens, you are equal among your people, you have rights, you are in your own country…and you are free.”
