It remains Russia’s greatest victory of the war and is still one of the only major cities that its forces were able to capture. In recent weeks, however, Ukrainian forces have struck three key bridges over the river, making them virtually impassable for heavy vehicles – aiming to slowly strangle Russian supply lines and cut off thousands of troops in the city. Ukraine “kills 200 Russians in one day” – last war A full-scale Ukrainian counterattack is believed to be imminent. Getting in touch with anyone still trapped in Kherson is difficult – most people are understandably either too scared to take the risk, or simply don’t have a phone or internet connection to the outside world. Ukraine’s mobile networks have been shut down and replaced with insecure Russian equivalents that have been found to be bugged and do not allow international calls. Sites like Google, Instagram and YouTube are blocked and access to international news is almost impossible. There is a small area in the city, known to few people, that is still connected to Ukraine’s phone networks – people go there to send and receive messages when they can. In villages outside the city of Kherson, people climb onto rooftops looking for a phone signal. Meeting friends or family takes planning and courage. Image: The makeshift water crossing built by the Russians to cross the river after the Ukrainians blew up the bridges “We agree in advance on the exact time, the exact time and the exact meeting place, and we cannot cancel the agreements, because it is too difficult,” one resident told us. “We write notes, leave them. We use coded language.” A resistance newspaper has been released recently – it’s been piped through mailboxes after dark and the Ukrainian resistance in the city has been keeping people informed of the location of Russian checkpoints. Image: Resistance leaflet posted in people’s mailboxes in Kherson We spent weeks talking to people who have recently escaped from Kherson and heard their stories about the Russian occupation. We were told accounts of people disappearing daily and rumors of a Russian crematorium burning the bodies of Russian soldiers to cover their losses and to get rid of the bodies of Ukrainians they tortured and killed. “Black cars come in the night and pick people up,” said one resident. Some return weeks later, and many are never seen again. Image: Flyers warning against taking Russian passports Basic services – food and medicine – are either in short supply or prohibitively expensive and life is becoming “desperate”, we were told. The lack of affordable meat has turned people into vegetarians and one person we spoke to said they are now “on the brink of starvation”. “There is almost no medical care there, drugs are a big problem,” Liliya from Odessa told us. He had just arrived from Kherson and had to pass through 19 Russian roadblocks before he could escape. “Now they started importing food products from [Russian-occupied] Crimea, but they are very expensive,” he said. “That’s the problem – the products appeared, but you can’t buy them because you don’t have money.” Everyone talks about living in fear of the Russian invaders. Image: Food is imported into Kherson via Crimea “It’s scary,” says Olena. “You don’t know what’s in their head. You don’t know what they’re going to do to you. You’re afraid to say something. You always filter your speech because you can’t say things by their name. Maybe there’s a Russian soldier sitting next to you on a bench and he listens to you. “We never use names and exact addresses in chat and correspondence, it is forbidden. Sometimes we agree on code words during a personal meeting.” Image: Olena says it’s scary in Kherson Olena continued, “If you report the movement of enemy equipment, then you need to delete all the mail so you don’t have anything on your phone. Because you might be stopped on the street and asked to show your phone.” He told us stories of people who were detained and held in basements and electrocuted for displaying the Ukrainian flag. Despite this, Ukraine’s yellow and blue colors have been sprayed on walls and painted on columns in defiance of the occupation. Image: The yellow and blue of Ukraine painted on a wall in occupied Kherson After trying several different routes and failing, we finally got in touch with someone who was still inside Kherson. Dmytro, not his real name, is a journalist and cannot tell the story of his city himself, so he asked us to. Through a fragile Internet connection, he pleaded with the world not to forget Kherson. Image: Dmytro, who has spoken to Sky News from inside Kherson “I understand that for people it’s somewhere far away,” he said. “Maybe they are tired of reading about Ukraine every day in the news. We still want to reach every European, every citizen of the world, so that they talk about us, know about us, especially about Kherson.” He said that in the suburbs, Russian soldiers walk the streets drunk, “a bottle of alcohol in one hand, a machine gun in the other.” Perhaps in anticipation of the coming counterattack, Dmytro said the behavior of Russian soldiers had changed over the past two weeks. Read more: Longer-range missiles sent by US and UK make Russia change tactics HIMAR system: New US weapon used by Ukraine against Russian targets “Almost every intersection has a checkpoint,” he continued. “All the cars and buses are checked. They ask everyone for their passports. They break down garage doors and gates. They look for weapons, they look for equipment. They are very afraid of the guerrillas.” It has been widely reported that the families of Russian soldiers who moved into Kherson in the days after its capture have now fled, fearing a counter-attack. And we are told by Ukrainian military sources that the Russian commanders in the city of Kherson have withdrawn to the other side of the river. Image: Pro-Russian propaganda is displayed on a large billboard. Once uploaded, it will read “with Russia, a decent life” and is aimed at pensioners Dmytro said: “To be honest, if maybe two generals or five colonels left Kherson, it is not very noticeable. But the common soldiers, the Russian conquerors, have begun to behave very brazenly. “It is clear that they have absolutely no discipline. This indirectly confirms that the top officers must have escaped. But no one saw it, because it is impossible to see. How did they get to the other side [of the Dnipro river] it must have been some kind of covert operation.’ Sky cannot independently verify these accounts. The Russians deny the allegations, but they have come from multiple sources over the course of several months. Image: The orange sign says that only cards from Russian banks are accepted at the store in Kherson. Many Ukrainian banks have closed making life much more difficult The longer-range HIMARS missiles, donated by the US and the UK, have allowed Ukrainian forces to hit strategic targets farther than in the past. Targeting the three road and rail bridges that cross the Dnipro River in Kherson was a deliberate strategy to cut off supply routes and strike fear into Russian soldiers. It works. The balance in Kherson is slowly tipping in favor of Ukraine.
