DOUGLAS MASON: Life in Ukraine’s most dangerous city

Kherson’s unenviable fate is to be Ukraine’s most dangerous city. There are worse places — Pokrovsk, for example — but they are evacuated and devasted by street fighting. Kherson is a besieged but functioning city on the frontline of a war, living through what is the world’s first large scale, and most deadly, drone siege.

To step outside is to run the risk of being chased and killed by Russian first person view (FPV) drones as though drawn from a scene in a dystopian science fiction film. Remarkably, people carry on near normal lives. But make no mistake — conditions are deadly.

Getting to Kherson means a 50km sprint on a road targeted by drones and littered with burnt-out vehicles. Across this devastated landscape drivers brave the risks at high speed. All have a critical piece of equipment — a dash-mounted drone detector that hacks a drone’s signal, showing what the Russian operator sees. If that is your car, speed up as fast as you can. Locals refer to these journeys as a “death lottery”.

When you do arrive a ghost city awaits where civilians lurk inside their homes, venturing out only for food or medicine. The front line is the riverbank of the Dnipro, passing the pleasant and well preserved downtown. The other side of the river is controlled by Russian forces 1km away from where a daily assault is mounted.

Russia occupied Kherson for nine months, before being defeated and expelled across the river in 2022. It has not forgotten the humiliation, and now pummels the city like a jealous lover intent on destroying what it cannot have.

Kherson exists as a layer-cake of risk. The closer to the river— “the zero line” — the higher the danger. The downtown and central districts absorb the bulk of Russia’s fury. The suburbs are safer, but not safe. Nowhere is.

People do walk the streets, but quickly and purposefully, glancing upward for drones. Seven people are killed or maimed by FPV drones each day on average, according to local data. A “human safari” is the term coined for this by locals. The sensation of stepping outside is likened to feeling hunted.

Videos of drone attacks are horrific. Most often they show civilians walking, unaware, until a dropped munition explodes next to them.

Others show the final moments of people desperately fleeing kamikaze drones chasing them at street level. Posted on semi-official Russian social media channels, they are responded to approvingly.

Outside Kherson, farmers working in the fields carry shotguns for protection, shooting down FPV drones. Among the most famous was Aleksandr Gordienko, head of the local farmers’ association. Gordienko was killed by a Russian drone strike on September 5, specifically targeted for this defiance.

So, look up for drones. But look down too, for tiny plastic anti-personnel mines that are scattered on the streets and get lost in the autumn leaves. They will take off a foot or leg if stepped on. People are maimed or die this way nearly every day. The mines serve no military purpose. Dropped randomly on residential streets, they are meant to maim and terrorise civilians, the clearest expression of Russian objectives.

FPV drones are just background to the sustained, daily velocity of Russian assault by artillery, tanks, missiles, attack drones — large drones with a big bomb payload — and glide bombs.

The glide bombs are an innovation — old, 1,500kg “dumb bombs” retro-fitted with fins and GPS to guide them to target when dropped from aircraft. They can destroy an entire building and the effect, according to locals, is terrifying.

The city is defended by the Ukraine Armed Forces’ (UAF’s) formidable 30^th Marine Corps. You are on the frontline of a hot war. The UAF run anti-drone operations to protect the city and counter-battery fire to take out Russian artillery and command and control posts. They are also in a fight to repel incursions into Kherson itself by Russian sabotage and assault groups crossing in small boats. The latter are invariably unsuccessful, next to being suicide missions.

Ukraine is at the leading edge of a new style of warfare where anything in the open is vulnerable to drones — a 15km wide “kill zone” on either side of the front line. With their own noir humour, residents remark that the crayfish of the river are well fed.

To find out more about Kherson I took a walk through the downtown with American journalist Zarina Zabrisksy, the last foreign journalist left and its most vocal and tireless advocate. Lining Freedom Square with its monumental Socialist Classicism regional headquarters building — now destroyed, with a gaping hole left by glide bombs — we pass functioning businesses, their glass store front windows boarded up.

Behind the doors of one, its entrance protected by blast walls, is a supermarket — among the most beautifully appointed and well-stocked supermarkets of my experience, anywhere. Winnie Mandela Drive’s Pick n’ Pay or Sea Point sans grocer? Get your act together.

Turning, we stroll down Kherson’s grand Vulytsya Nebesnoyi Sotni — Avenue of the Heavenly Hundred — leading to what is locally termed the “Circle of Death”. The name is assigned for the route being over open spaces where you can be easily spotted by drones, where there are no physical barriers to protect against the blast of artillery strikes, and because it is close to Russian gunners on the river.

“Everywhere is dangerous” says Zarina, “we are on the front line; but this is where the drones can most easily see you, chase you and kill you”. Different parts of Kherson have their own level of risk – everyone negotiates getting from one place to another. “Some friends will not visit me because they think it is too dangerous”.

Artillery is booming in the distance during this conversation, but coming closer. It is bright and sunny, perfect drone weather, and looking around there seems nowhere to hide. If we are not on the Circle of Death already, then we are close. I am not wearing my helmet and flak jacket with PRESS emblazoned across the front. It is not advised in Kherson, and will only attract the attention of drone operators. Journalists are explicit targets for the Russian Armed Forces, Vladimir Putin’s revenge for the West’s perfidious defence of Ukraine.

We start walking back. The artillery fire is getting louder. Opposite is Kherson’s vast and beautiful Fortress Park, the plane trees changing colour and leaves falling in the autumn weather. We cannot go there due to packs of feral dogs, drawn from the many strays left behind when families fled the invasion. They have become dangerous and attack people.

During the occupation bodies were often not cleared from streets and some acquired familiarity with human flesh, though most were destroyed. In my own neighbourhood strays are fed by locals, the age old social contract between people and dogs upheld by both sides.

The streets look deserted but there is a quiet energy to this city and its brave and resilient residents. Much activity, cultural and social, takes place underground - in bomb shelters or indoors: plays, yoga classes, book clubs, birthday parties, a few cafes and restaurants to meet at, some quite smart.

Amid human darkness human light can always be found. Remarkably, a live theatre performance is under way in a bomb shelter, the premiere of a children’s play.

The plot premise is apropos - a young girl, with her mother, are displaced by the war and flee to a European city. The play, performed by local children, is well attended by families and the intent is to help process what is happening around them, caught in a war zone.

The theatre director himself is worthy of mention, Oleksandr Knyha, an elegant man who survived Russian control, fleeing after being detained by the security services for his rejection of occupation narratives. This play shows him still serving his art and mandate to the community.

There are 60,000 people left in Kherson, an 80% drop since the start of the war. The majority are pensioners and their care givers. Some are people who left but returned due to inability to find shelter and sufficient income elsewhere.

The remainder of the economically active population are public sector workers, small business owners, professional traders and people too stubborn to leave.

Behind official narratives about the resilience of the city and obvious heroism of those who remain and keep it running, there is quiet debate about whether, or how many, people should remain.

Free will allows residents to choose. Even in urban combat zones on the front line mandatory evacuation orders are applied sparingly.

More controversial in Kherson are the perverse incentives of humanitarian assistance. Few are willing to go on record about this. But one ready to speak his mind is Denis Sukhanov, a successful pre-war businessman, active member of the resistance during Russian occupation and, still, a full-time resident. Sukhanov, a hero who despises heroism, is blunt in his assessment of leadership that encourages people to remain under the guise of bravery, quoting German playwright Bertolt Brecht: “Only bad generals need heroes”.

Artillery fire is constant in Kherson, 24/7. The shelling rakes across the city, moving from one side to the other, but with random changes, stops and starts to make it unpredictable. These attacks are designed to make life unliveable, to terrorise a civilian population. They don’t succeed, but they do exact a cost. You don’t know if you are next.

The shelling is moving away and seems like it can be ignored until a burst lands next to my apartment building, breaking windows, followed by more in quick succession. In the absence of a bomb shelter neighbours gather in the stairwell — pensioners are all who are left — crouching on the floor to wait it out. “There is never just one”, they say, “this could go on for some time”.

It is a dangerous place. But I did not find hell or hopelessness; I found agency, innovation, kindness — every face of the human spirit.

The next day artillery fire is moving closer and we’ve been to our stair-well bomb shelter three times since last night. This is not random shelling, it is a sustained attack. News arrives that a children’s hospital nearby has been hit; there are nine injuries there and 50 apartments have been destroyed.

A text message informs me that I will be evacuated — the military press office, which has allowed my access, does not want foreign journalists dead or in trouble. Seconds later an artillery shell lands, blowing out the boarded-up windows and sending shrapnel through the walls, bracketing the table where I am working. It is time to leave.

Russian military abuses against civilians are not accidental. They are part of a co-ordinated state policy to create a permanent climate of terror and force civilians to flee. According to a recent report of the UN Human Rights Council, released on October 27, the policy and its consequences are a war crime and a “crime against humanity”. Russia denies the accusation, but refused to co-operate with UN investigators. Consistent targets are civilians, civilian homes, hospitals, schools and humanitarian distribution points. That includes so-called “double tap” strikes against emergency service first responders.

Russian actions in Kherson are cruel in targeting civilians. But they are failing in their objective of breaking morale. Locals are not cowed; mostly they are resourceful and unfailingly helpful. One, teacher Anna Pugach, explains: “We keep our spirit alive this way, we all want to know if everyone else is OK, we look out for them to see if we can help”. The determination to keep things moving normally — the city functioning, municipal services all work, and for people to go about their jobs, their lives — is largely successful.

I came to Kherson to write about a hellscape city under siege. I didn’t find that at all. There is a siege, in every sense of the word, and much violent destruction, injury and death. It is a dangerous place. But I did not find hell or hopelessness; I found agency, innovation, kindness — every face of the human spirit.

Above all, locals did not ever show doubt about the future of the city or the country and its bright prospects. Ukrainians have not lost their humanity despite being brutalised by the experience of war; they have rediscovered it.

• Mason, an associate of Johannesburg-based risk and resilience consultancy Eunomix, lives in Rosendal, Free State. He is on assignment in Ukraine.