Military gods and selfie troops. Report from liberated Kherson

Kherson has been celebrating its return to Ukraine for the fourth day. It started when the Russian troops had already left and the Ukrainian servicemen had not yet arrived. Now all people in uniform are gods and celebrities here. Girls ask to leave a signature on their clothes or even on their chests covered with a light sweater. The soldiers are embarrassed.

One of them writes the word “love” on the back of a young girl and adds “126 TrO” and signature.

126th Brigade is an Odesa Territorial Defense brigade that has been fighting on the border of Mykolaiv and Kherson Oblasts, and then in Kherson Oblast itself since the beginning of the full-scale war.

Svobody Square (Freedom Square – ed.) in Kherson for the fourth day is a continuous photo zone, which many Ukrainians would like to get to. People in uniform, who may not have fought for the liberation of Kherson region and the regional center, appear here.

For example, Zorian Shkiriak, the former head of the State Emergency Service, wearing a uniform, approaches Oleksandr Vilkul, a former Party of Regions member and now the head of the Kryvyi Rih Military Administration, dressed in military uniform. Behind him, Taras Berezovets, a political strategist and presenter dressed in military uniform, and now a press officer of the 1st Separate Special Purpose Brigade named after Ivan Bohun, is taking pictures with locals.

Vilkul will later write in his official telegram channel: “Greetings from Kherson Oblast, there will be no briefing today. I do not have time”. In the attached video to the message, Vilkul says that he brought a flagpole for the Ukrainian flag to Kherson.

Mission to deliver coffee from Ivano-Frankivsk to a coffee shop in Kherson

Outside the square, life in the city stands still. According to local police, there are 86 thousand of 320 thousand residents left. All of them have been living without electricity for the fourth day and without water for the third day. So far, they do not complain, but they ask questions. The police assume that electricity will be supplied in about a month. And communication will be restored soon.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine are really gods here, and not only because of the liberation of Kherson, but also because they bring Starlinks. Thanks to this, there is a connection only on the square. You can't catch the signal any further.

I have a mission — to deliver a pack of coffee to a coffee shop. I know the address. We are trying to find the coffee shop with the help of the locals. On the pack of coffee, it is written “Grown on Kherson watermelons”. I bring the coffee from Ivano-Frankivsk — the owner of the Kherson coffee shop, the man who gave me the pack of coffee, moved there.

He opened another coffee shop in Ivano-Frankivsk, and it became the center of the “Kherson diaspora”. A few days before Kherson was liberated, we met him. His name is Kostia. When Kostia heard from me that Kherson was about to be liberated, he doubted. When I said that I was about to go there, he doubted even more. But he gave me a pack of coffee, told me to find his shop in Kherson, and Vlad, who stayed there.

So we arrive at the coffee shop. It seems that no one is inside, but there is a generator outside the door. It's open. A man comes out to us. I understand that it is Vlad.

I say that I brought coffee, and he smiles. I tell him about Kostia. We film Vlad on the phone so that I can get to Mykolaiv and send a video message to Kostia from there. There is a generator in the coffee shop, and they pour coffee. They poured us some too. And they didn't take any money.

But while we are drinking coffee at Vlad's place in Kherson, he tells us that black coffee now costs 40 hryvnias or 50 rubles per cup and he still has rubles left. He shows his wallet.

“Russians also came in and took coffee. Once they started talking about Stremousov (a collaborator, the so-called deputy head of the Kherson Regional State Administration, who, according to Russian authorities, died on November 10 in an accident on the eve of the liberation of Kherson — ed.) And I'm standing, smoking, listening. And they say: ‘Who is this clown? The shells hit where he is.’ And then they came in one day and said: ‘That's it, we're leaving in two days’. Ahha”.

Will Zelenskyy come?

Unlike other liberated cities, Kherson was not ruined by missiles. There are several buildings destroyed by the HIMARSs: the court, where the Russians and their Gauleiters moved the administration; the hotel, where ex-member of the Party of Regions and collaborator Zhuravko was killed, and the house, which is popularly called the “police school”. This is a residential building, where apartments were once given to police officers. During the occupation, Russian military lived here. And, according to the Ukrainian General Staff, up to 200 occupants were killed here. Locals say that the Russians managed to leave before the attack.

Many Kherson residents are afraid that now Russians will start shelling them from the left bank of Dnipro. On the Dnipro River embankment, several dozen people with children are catching the Russian signal. Here it comes from the other bank. And I think that we are standing in front of the front line. The sounds of explosions are heard from afar. Everyone guesses: is it demining or is our artillery working somewhere?

You can’t see military hardware in the city. No soldiers are seen either, except in the photo zone — on the central square. Where they are going next is still a big secret.

But it is clear that no one will attack the Russian positions across the two blown-up bridges over the Dnipro River. Artillery, which can now reach Melitopol, a strategically important city for the Russians, from the right bank of the Dnipro, will not be placed in Kherson or anywhere near it. Everyone hopes that Kherson will be lucky to survive and the city will not be hit.

The city on the bank of the Dnipro is worried about one more thing: whether Zelenskyy will come. Rumors about his arrival are spreading, but everyone understands that it is dangerous for the President.

We ask two boys of 7-8 years old if they have already seen the Armed Forces. They answer that they have, but that Zelenskyy is the coolest among all of them, because “he is young and fair, not like that bald putz (Putin — ed.)”.

Finally, the President came to Kherson.

Starlink, humanitarian and neighbors-collaborators

In one of the residential districts, the Serhiy Prytula Foundation distributes humanitarian aid and WiFi from Starlink. There is one hour left before the long curfew, which was set by the Ukrainian authorities after the liberation of the city. People immediately come together.

“Vita, here, talk to your daughter,” the man says. “Wait, let me tell the journalists how we lived here,” Vita waves the man away.

Everyone is trying to use the Internet to talk to relatives “on the big land”. “They stole a cable and strapped a flare to the fence, can you imagine?” one man complains on the phone. From Russian videos, we now know that they also stole animals from the zoo, including raccoons, paintings from the art museum, and two monuments.

“They walked around here and said that we are ‘too free here, it should be tougher’. But how tough is enough? We walked through the yards not to meet them”, - Vita interrupts her neighbor.

“What was going on here! They went from apartment to apartment, they had lists, and beat people badly. Where did the lists come from? Well, they were turned in. We have a friendly yard, but one old b**ch, pardon the expression, our neighbor, was walking around and called everyone to vote. Sometimes you have no idea who you live next to,” Vita shakes her head.

“So this b**ch from our yard,” Vita's neighbor picks up, “tells us: ‘At least the Russians have put things in order’. I told her: ‘Did they wash your windows or something?’”

Vita's neighbor comes up to our small group. He says that his friends, who have a generator and live in the detached house, celebrated the liberation of Kherson yesterday until one in the morning. With music.

Curfew

At 17 o'clock, when a curfew starts, Starlink is turned off and the distribution of humanitarian aid is finished. Darkness falls in the city, and life everywhere, except the central square, stops. A block away, a woman with a black eye comes out of the darkness to us. She sees that we are journalists and wants to tell her story.

She is a convicted prisoner and spent the entire occupation with 600 other prisoners in the Kherson detention center. Three days ago, the entire administration and guards fled, leaving the prisoners locked up. But someone managed to find the keys, the woman explains: “Now we are all wandering around Kherson, we have to do something, I'm scared”.

The woman went to the police, they gave her food. But they did not take her anywhere. Later I met the chief of Kherson police and asked about the prisoners. “Yes, they escaped. We are aware of it. We are finding them little by little, soon it will get colder, and they will come themselves”.

According to the military, Russian soldiers disguised in civilian clothes may also remain in the city. So far, 6 patrol cars are watching the city.