“There is no end to the attacks”. Russia wants to finish the next city of Ukraine
– How can you pack your whole life into a few suitcases? – asks Hallena, a pensioner from the island of Korabel, fighting with tears.
The authorities of Khersoni announced that after Russian attacks on the bridge connecting the district of the island of Korabel and the permanent land, 1641 civilians were evacuated, including 56 children and 169 people with limited motor efficiency, to temporary accommodation centers in Ukraine. According to various estimates, the island's population was from 1.8 thousand. up to 2.2 thousand people.
Evacuation through a damaged bridge means bypassing craters on bombs, burned cars and scattered shards, while having to move as soon as possible. Volunteers managing the evacuation stop to replace pierced tires before they return to the next evacuated, risking fire or drones from the left shore occupied by Russia.
Another challenge is Convincing the inhabitants of the island to evacuate. For example, older people are reluctant to leave their homes, even though they threaten them Total insulation on the island without access to gas, electricity and water.
Despite many threats, more and more residents are coming back to their homes on the island.
– Volunteers and police appeared at my door. I refused to go. But after hitting the bridge, all the neighbors left immediately, and I was alone in a nine -story block. During the fire, the gas turned off, so I could not cook, cooked pasta in the kettle. There is no electricity now. After a few days, the police appeared again and said that Nobody will repair electricity and gas in the building, and the food will not be transported to the island – says Halyna.
He is 76 years old and since the stroke, which she was 10 years ago, has been dealing with disabilities. Her son installed a handrail in the apartment to help her move between the rooms, but for three years she could not leave the building because the elevator does not work.
Residents without hope
“I have already got used to loneliness,” Halyna continues. – I observe the occupation, liberation and war from the window. I lived with my son, but two years ago he died during shelling. A social worker visited me once a week and brought food, but now she doesn't come. I was afraid to leave the apartment. But I didn't want to starve.
Halyna was taken out of the apartment on a stretcher, six floors went down the stairs and she was quickly taken through the bridge to the hospital, which currently serves as a temporary shelter for evacuated elderly people. In the hospital they receive meals and have measured blood pressure and temperature. However, they can remain there for two weeks, after which they must find a different place of residence.
Halyna explains that evacuated, who have nowhere to go, are sent to a temporary public shelter created by the Ukrainian authorities to provide basic services, such as electricity, heating and the Internet, to people who lost their homes as a result of Russian attacks.
“I don't know how long I can stay there,” says Hallena. – They say until the end of the war. But what if the war takes summer? Some evacuated are transported to a psychiatric hospital in Stepaniwka, which has a geriatric ward.
Halyna knows a woman who stayed there and who described the conditions as “very bad”.
“I regret not dying”
Halyna doesn't know what to do next. There are no relatives with whom she could stop and is unable to rent a flat. A studio apartment in Cherson costs at least 5,000 Hryvien (at the current exchange rate PLN 440), and its pension is only 3.6 thousand. Hryvien (PLN 317). A woman could move to a less dangerous region of Ukraine and live in a refugee shelter, but they are also overcrowded.
“I don't know what awaits me,” says Hallena. – One thing I know for sure: I will not leave Chersonia. I was born here and I will die here. I was in my apartment when the island was flooded last year. The water flooded the first two floors. But I survived. I was also able to deal with fire as long as I had enough food and water. I still wonder what will happen next. I can't sleep. Why did all this happen to me in the elderly? I regret that I did not die in my own home.
Destruction after Russian attacks in Cherson, June 1, 2025.
– Everything that hits the bridge also heads straight towards my building – says Nadieżda, a pensioner who lived near the bridge all her life. The shards broke all the windows in her apartment, and part of the wall collapsed, forcing her to evacuate to the family's home near Centrum Khersonia.
Over the past three years, Nadieżda, her daughter and granddaughter They evacuated twice from Chersonia – But they came back every time. They moved to Odessa and Kiev, which exhausted the savings of the family. The daughter of Nadieżda had a job in Cherson, but she could not find employment elsewhere. Despite their daily fire, they decided to come back. At least they had their own home in the city.
Hazardous zone
The granddaughter Nadieżda is now a volunteer helping evacuated. Before leaving the house, he puts on a bulletproof vest. “We're worried, waiting for him to return home in the evening,” says the woman.
Since the Russian troops attacked the bridge, local residents are concerned about the Russian occupation. – The bridge did not have no military or tactical significance – says Jurij Sobolewski, the first deputy chairman of the circuit council of Khersonia. According to Władysław Wołoszyn, a spokesman for Ukrainian forces in the south, the bridge was mainly used for civil transport.
Oleksandr, a Ukrainian drone operator who grew up in Kherson, said that Russia probably attacked the island because its tall buildings make it a “convenient place to control drones.”
– They will shoot us every day, but they will not take us again – says the Ukrainian, expressing doubts about Russia's ability to conduct a large -scale offensive in Cherson. “Killing civilians is a hobby of Russians,” adds Oleksandr, referring to the recent attack of the Russian drone on the bus. As a result of the impact, two civilians were killed and six others were injured.
Oleksandr claims that civilians who remain on the island and in other coastal areas of Chersonia “make military activities”. He adds that “it is there that the fire is the strongest, and the supply of food and medicines to people who remain in the danger zone or repairing daily destroyed communication means exposes everyone to danger.”
“There is no end to these attacks”
The first rescuers often fall victim to drone attacks – they come to help the wounded, but are hit during the next blow. According to Governor of Cherson, Oleksandra Prokudin only this year 98 people were killed in Russian drone attacks, including a one -year -old boy. Another 939 people were injured.
If the bridge collapses, people who remain on the island will stay cut off from the continental part of Chersonia And they will not have access to food inventory. They will also not be able to receive deliveries by boat, because civilians are strictly forbidden to influence the river. Each unidentified boat is attacked by both Ukrainian and Russian forces.
Destruction after Russian attacks in Cherson, March 13, 2025.
Oleksandr for three years cannot visit the grave of his mother, located on the left bank of the city, and does not know when he will be able to do it. “There is no end to these attacks,” he says. – Recovering the left bank of the region of Kersonia with military agents is impossible. We are desperately missing people – he adds.
Oleksandr claims that if the peace agreement frozen the current lines of the front, the inhabitants of the territories occupied by Russia would understand that nobody would help them. However, he does not expect a mass escape from the occupied areas. People who are implemented during the war and now submit basic needs, such as food and shelter, over the color of the passport – he says.
“But something must change,” says Oleksandr. – Fighting at this pace for the fourth year is impossible.
