Kherson toils to clear enemy’s traps
City has been free of its Russian occupiers for a month, but life is still far from normal.
KHERSON, Ukraine — A grenade jury-rigged into a washing machine. A street sign maliciously directing passersby to a minefield. A police station that allegedly housed a torture chamber but remains so boobytrapped that crews can’t begin to hunt for evidence.
Sunday marked one month since Russian troops withdrew from Kherson and its vicinity after an eightmonth occupation, sparking jubilation across Ukraine. But life in the southern city is still far from normal.
The departing Russians left behind all sorts of ugly surprises, and their artillery continues to batter the city from across the Dnieper River. The regional administration said Saturday that shelling over the last month has killed 41 people, including a child, in Kherson.
Access to electricity comes and goes, although water is largely connected, and indoor heating has only recently been restored — to 70%-80% of the city — after Russians last month blew up a central heating station.
For authorities and citizens, sifting through the headaches and hazards left behind by the Russians, and bracing for new ones, is a daily chore.
Regional officials say 80% of Kherson’s prewar population of 320,000 fled after the Russian invasion began Feb. 24. With 60,000 to 70,000 residents remaining, the city is a ghost town. Residents mostly keep indoors, cautious about making forays into the streets.
“Life is getting back to normal, but there is a lot of shelling,” said Valentyna Kytaiska, 56. She lamented the nightly “Bam! Bam!” and the uncertainty of where the Russian ordnance may land.
Efforts go on to establish a sense of normalcy, such as clearing the mess and mines left behind by the Russians.
“The difficulties are very simple — it’s the weather conditions,” said one military demining squad member. He said some of the equipment doesn’t work “because the soil is frozen like concrete.”
In Kherson’s Beryslavskyi district, a main road was blocked off with a sign reading “Mines ahead” and rerouting passersby to a smaller road. In fact, it was that side road that was mined, costing the lives of some military deminers. A few weeks later, four police officers were killed there.
The state of disrepair of weather-beaten roads helped outgoing Russians disguise their deadly traps; potholes, some covered with soil, provided a convenient place to lay mines. Sometimes, the Russians cut into the asphalt to make holes themselves.
Demining squads go from house to house to ensure that it’s safe for residents to return. Experts say a single home can take up to three days to be cleared. One crew turned up a hand grenade stuffed into a washing machine — the pin placed in such a way that opening the detergent tray would set off an explosion.
The main police station, where detainees were reportedly tortured, is packed with explosives. When demining squads tried to enter, part of the building exploded — so they’ve shelved the project for now.
Long-term questions remain. Kherson sits in an agricultural region that produces crops as diverse as wheat, tomatoes and watermelon. The fields are so heavily mined that about 30% of arable land is unlikely to be planted in the spring, a deminer said. A cursory look reveals the tops of mines poking up from the fields.
Even so, after shelling from Friday evening into Saturday, Kherson resident Oleksandr Chebotariov said life had been worse under the Russians.
“It’s easier to breathe now,” the 35-year-old radiologist said, only to add, “If the banging doesn’t stop before the new year, I’m going on vacation.”