Randomness of shelling keeps Ukrainian town in suspended animation
The shelling of Beryslav proceeds without rhyme or reason. Sometimes, said Serhei Haidamak, the Russians drop grenades from small drones. Sometimes there are airstrikes targeting large buildings.
And “sometimes they bring up a tank and just pop off rounds, bang bang bang. Like they’re just chucking stuff in the general direction of Ukraine without bothering to aim at anything”.
Describing the degree of luck required to survive here, he gestured at the passenger door of his Lada. He had parked the car and popped into a shop when a drone dropped a grenade, spattering it with shrapnel.
Even luckier was that the neighbouring car, which had a canister of petrol in the back, took most of the damage but did not explode.
“It was a close call, but that’s small change,” he said.
Beryslav is an ancient settlement built on a scarp that tumbles from the steppe plateau down to the Dnipro river. Over the years it has served as a medieval Lithuanian border post, an Ottoman fortress and, before the river downstream was dammed in the 1950s, an important ford.
Now, it offers a snapshot of life along the 180-mile stretch of the Dnipro river which forms the front line between Russian and Ukrainian forces.
Like other towns in the area, it was occupied in March last year, shortly after the Russians seized the Antonovsky bridge in Kherson and a bridgehead on the right bank of the Dnipro. Then they retreated to the opposite bank, initially, said one local, in response to Ukrainian HIMARS launchers firing deep into occupied territory.
Since then, the bombardments have gone through waves and troughs entirely unpredictable to most people
The past week has been typical. On Thursday, a large aerial bomb destroyed what was left of the town’s large machine building factory. The Ukrainians had already struck it when the Russians held the town.
On Friday, a barrage of shells fired seemingly at random pounded the town. One landed near a shop in the town centre.
But Saturday, for no reason at all, there was idyllic silence. The buildings of Kakhovka, the Russian-occupied town across the water, shimmered in a heat haze.
Down by the river bank, the corrugated steel superstructure of the grain terminal emits a gentle stream of white smoke.
It was hit by an airstrike three weeks ago, and the maize and soy inside is still burning. Putting the slow blaze out in full view of the Russians on the opposite bank is out of the question.
Of the pre-war population of 20,000, about 3,000 remain, according to the official list made by authorities of people requiring help.
“There’s an awful lot of immobile people. The elderly, the disabled,” explained Mr Haidamak. “The big shops are closed, but the little ones are still open and you can buy food. As for water and electricity, well, the guys try as much as they can to keep it on.” The depopulation can be felt starkly. Outside town a field of oilseed rape is in full, brilliant bloom, but it was self-seeded after being unharvested last year, and will probably remain untouched again this season.
There is little sign of military activity here, but tensions all along the river are mounting. The city of Kherson was shelled heavily by the Russians on Wednesday and intensive artillery fire could be heard on stretches of the river near the city on Thursday and Friday.
Ukrainian authorities imposed a 56-hour curfew there over the weekend, banning anyone from entering and ordering civilians to stay indoors.
There are credible reports that the Ukrainian special forces have already established footholds in the marshy areas of the opposite bank.
And there is activity in the air. A twin-tailed jet fighter wheeled over the steppe near here on Saturday morning. It was impossible to tell whose it was before it vanished.
A river-crossing offensive seems far-fetched. At Beryslav, the river is more than two miles across.
A few miles downstream stands the Nova Kakhovka dam, a hydroelectric plant that provides the only remaining crossing between the Russian and Ukrainian-held banks of the river.
But it is a suicidally obvious crossing point, and the Russians blew up the road and rail sections as they retreated in November.
Below the dam the river narrows dramatically – in places down to just 300 metres – but even that would be difficult to cross under fire.
For now, Beryslav and the surrounding steppe remain in a kind of suspended animation: depopulated, vulnerable, uncertain when the next shell will land, let alone what the offensive will bring.
‘There are a lot of immobile people. The elderly, disabled. The little shops are open for food’