KHERSON’S BUILDINGS MOSTLY STAND, BUT ITS INFRASTRUCTURE IS SEVERED
Military assessing destruction after Russian occupation
KHERSON, Ukraine
Ukrainian officials were preparing Sunday to race food, water and medicine to the city of Kherson just two days after its troops reentered it, while the military worked to secure more of the city and assess the extent of destruction after nearly nine months of Russian occupation.
Russia captured Kherson, a symbolic and strategic prize for President Vladimir Putin, at the start of the war and immediately moved to cut the city off from the world. Ukrainian officials and allies feared that once the city was liberated they would discover the signs of destruction that Russia left behind in other towns and cities.
More than eight months of war have displaced more than 7 million people within Ukraine, leaving some towns and cities with less than half their population. Millions more have fled Ukraine altogether.
“Russian occupying forces and collaborators did everything possible to make those people who remained in the city suffer as hard as possible during these days of waiting, weeks of waiting, months,” Roman Golovnya, an adviser to the mayor of Kherson, said on national
television.
The threat from Russian forces remained, officials warned Sunday. Yaroslav Yanushevych, head of the regional military administration, on Sunday urged residents of the city and surrounding region to evacuate, citing the risk of Russian attacks.
But Sunday, though villages outside it have been heavily hit, there were signs that Kherson had not suffered the extent of devastation faced by cities like Mariupol, which Russian forces leveled. While more than three-quarters of Kherson’s residents have fled since the war, leaving about 75,000 people, and there was
limited water supply, many buildings and streets appeared intact.
The Ukrainian strategy of patiently attacking Russian forces over months, launching pinpoint strikes on their supply lines and positions, seemed to have preserved at least the fabric of the city.
Residents of Kherson told stories for the first time of enduring months of explosions and shelling, describing the extreme precision with which Ukraine used HIMARS, an advanced missile system, against Russian positions and supply lines.
Ukrainians targeted Russian positions in the city with the aid of a network of
informants, working to avoid hitting civilians. One Russian stronghold near a hospital was leveled by Ukrainian shelling. But the blast appeared to leave the facility relatively unscathed, with its windows intact. Along Ushakova Avenue, an elegant boulevard through the city lined with trees, most of the buildings were undamaged.
The Russian repression often happened in the shadows, with residents speaking of friends and family who were detained and disappeared over nine months of Russian occupation.