Residents of the Kherson region are exuberantly celebrating the end of eight months of Russian occupation. Conversing with reporters, they open up about the Russians who have retreated to the east bank of the Dnipro River.
In the village of Blahodatne, residents wept with joy as Ukrainian soldiers arrived on Thursday. In the previous months, a hundred Russian soldiers are said to have waged a reign of terror.
About a thousand people lived in Blahodatne. Now there are about sixty left. Mykhailo Hodykin, 73, is one of them. He tells the news agency Reuters that his neighbor was shot when he was drunk and got too close to Russian soldiers.
Many inhabitants left before the arrival of the Russians. But the Russians also allegedly took away people who never came back. Abandoned houses have been looted, residents say. Cell phones had to be handed over.
The journalists of Reuters he saw houses that had been ransacked. The medium could not verify the claims about the residents killed.
Kherson was without water and internet
In the provincial capital of Kherson, residents lacked access to water and the Internet. Also, there was often no electricity, he writes Cnn. Residents say in a conversation with the American broadcaster that people have been tortured and deported.
“We were terrified,” says resident Olga. She also claims that the houses were looted by Russian soldiers. “They could invade your home at any moment.”
The liberation by the Ukrainian soldiers seems “the best day of his life”. However, there are concerns. For example, residents want to know what happened to missing friends and relatives. “We expect a lot of deaths, but we just don’t know.”
Ukrainian soldiers entered Kherson on Friday after Russia signaled the withdrawal was complete. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called it a “historic day”. It was the third time since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24 that Russia was forced to withdraw from a region.
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