“At the beginning of the war, one [Ukrainian] soldier made a stupid TikTok video on the streets outside our house,” Tatiana, a middle-aged local resident, told The Daily Beast. She picked up her phone to show a video of a smiling young man in military uniform bragging about his unit’s success in pushing back the Russians. Almost immediately after, Russian artillery had fired on her property, thinking that Ukrainian soldiers had taken refuge inside. Ukraine’s operational security is much tighter now, but Tatiana’s anger is still palpable. For six months, this village was on the Ukrainian frontline in the war for the Kherson region, which Russian forces had seized in the first weeks of the invasion. Tatiana had been left behind under shelling with only her dog for company. The poor animal’s fur was ragged — shell-shocked and barking its head off at anyone who took a step toward it. Life in Kherson is not at all normal yet. Not only are residents still at risk from Russian shelling, but fields are littered with mines, discarded and unexploded ordnance, and booby traps set by retreating Russian troops. Tatiana and her dog outside her destroyed house.
Courtesy of Tom Mutch
On our way back from Snihurivka, another former front-line village, we passed a Ukrainian tank lying on its side in a roadside ditch. It had been wrecked less than 15 minutes before by a grenade explosion. Its rails had fallen off, its chassis was cracked and it was leaking fuel. His crew sat over the carcass, nervous and trembling but miraculously unharmed. Anthony Connell, a demining specialist at Swiss demining company FSD, predicted it would take “decades of peace” for the Ukrainians to clear the country of explosive remnants. He has been working in the Donbas region since 2016, which was one of the most mine-infested areas in the world—even then. Now, the damage across the country is indescribably worse. Even in the Kiev and Chernihiv regions, where fighting has raged for just over a month, many areas are too dangerous to walk. Connell estimated that dozens of civilians had been killed by explosives in those areas since they were liberated in April. Adding to the problems of civilians like Tatiana is the dire economic crisis caused by the war. Tatiana’s brother-in-law, who did not want to be named, said local authorities had promised financial help, but nothing has materialized so far. “When can we come back to live here? It’s all about money. And we have very little,” he told The Daily Beast. They will rebuild as much as they can before the worst of the cold hits. They then plan to stay with extended family in the Mykolaiv region before returning to their village in the spring. This is the start of what will likely be the toughest winter in Ukraine’s recent history, as civilians struggle with widespread heat and water shortages after a series of Russian missiles crippled the country’s electricity infrastructure. Tatiana’s relatives drink tea during a break from work.
Courtesy of Tom Mutch
As with many of the deprivations during the war, Ukrainians are adapting as best they can. Walking down the streets of any major city, you can hear the hum of diesel generators imported by the thousands to power local homes and businesses. Local authorities and civil society organizations have set up thousands of “invincibility stations” in schools, public buildings and train stations across Ukraine. These are tents with heaters, power stations for charging devices and facilities for tea, coffee and sandwiches. But these may be little more than a Band-Aid in what has become the most difficult period since the full-scale invasion began in February. When The Daily Beast visited the Kherson region last Thursday, lines of cars were running from the entrance to the city of Kherson as hundreds fled renewed shelling by the Russian military, now entrenched above the Dnipro River, just about 1 mile away. It’s a far cry from last week’s jubilation, when a triumphant President Volodymyr Zelensky entered the city’s main square, which was filled with jubilant citizens singing patriotic songs and waving Ukrainian flags. Since then, at least 32 civilians have been killed by Russian attacks, the highest of any region in the country. The town has been completely without power and local authorities have insisted that anyone who can evacuate for the winter should do so. The damaged main road in the village of Myrni.
Courtesy of Tom Mutch
What is happening in Kherson is a microcosm of the Ukrainian state as a whole. There is a sad irony because on the military front, Ukraine’s armed forces are outperforming even the most optimistic predictions made before the war. The Ukrainians recently mounted two well-executed and successful counterattacks in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions, allowing them to liberate swaths of territory, including the only regional capital that the Russians had captured. Meanwhile, the Russians were unable to achieve even their most limited war aims. In the Donetsk region, the Russian army and the Wagner mercenary group relentlessly attack the small town of Bakhmut, gradually making territorial gains at the cost of high casualties. A cat scratches in a Russian trench.
Courtesy of Tom Mutch
About a five minute drive down the road from Tatiana’s place are the remains of Russian trenches, full of abandoned guns and ammunition covered in trash. Crawling through the debris and looking for food was a ginger tabby cat with bright green eyes who jumped into our vehicle and refused to leave. We ended up taking him with us to Kyiv. Back in the capital, Anna Kudriashova, a well-known singer, said she expected to see winter at home no matter what. “I’m with my family,” he told The Daily Beast, “and that’s the most important and warmest thing for me.”
