Free for a month, Kherson toils to clear Russian traps

KHERSON, Ukraine —  A hand grenade jury-rigged into the detergent tray of a washing machine. A street sign maliciously directing passersby to a deadly minefield. A police station that allegedly housed a torture chamber but remains so booby-trapped that crews can’t even begin to hunt for evidence.

Sunday marks one month since Russia’s troops withdrew from Kherson and its vicinity after an eight-month occupation, sparking jubilation across Ukraine. But life in the southern city is still far from normal.

The departing Russians left behind all sorts of ugly surprises, and their artillery continues to batter the city from new, dug-in positions across the Dnieper River. The regional administration said Saturday that shelling over the past month has killed 41 people, including a child, in Kherson, and 96 have been hospitalized.

Access to electricity comes and goes, although water is largely connected, and indoor heating has only recently been restored — to 70%-80% of the city — after the Russians last month blew up a central heating station.

For authorities and citizens, sifting through the headaches and hazards left behind by the Russians, and bracing for new ones, is a daily chore.

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On Friday alone, according to the local affiliate of public broadcaster Suspilne, Russian forces shelled the region 68 times with mortars, artillery and tank and rocket fire. In the last month, 5,500 people have taken evacuation trains out, and work crews have cleared 115 miles of road, Suspilne reported.

When aid trucks arrived a month ago, war-weary and desperate residents flocked to the central Svoboda (Freedom) Square for food and supplies. But after a Russian strike on the square as people queued to enter a bank in late November, such gatherings have become less common, and aid is doled out from smaller, more discreet, distribution points.

Regional officials say some 80% of Kherson’s pre-war population of 320,000 fled after the Russian invasion began Feb. 24. With 60,000 to 70,000 residents remaining, the city is a ghost town. Residents mostly keep indoors, cautious about making forays into the streets.

“Life is getting back to normal, but there is a lot of shelling,” said Valentyna Kytaiska, 56, who lives in the nearby village of Chornobaivka. She lamented the nightly “Bam! Bam!” and the uncertainty of where the Russian ordnance may land.

There’s no telling whether what Russia insists on calling a “special military operation” will end in days, weeks, months or even years.

In the meantime, efforts go on to establish a sense of normalcy, such as clearing the mess and mines left behind by the Russians.

“The difficulties are very simple — it’s the weather conditions,” said one military demining squad member who goes by the nom de guerre Tekhnik. He said some of the equipment simply doesn’t work “because the soil is frozen like concrete.”

Additional teams could ease the heavy workload, he said.

“To give you an idea, during the month of our work, we found and removed several tons of mines,” said Tekhnik, referring to efforts in an area of about four square miles.

In Kherson’s Beryslavskyi district, a main road was blocked off with a sign reading “Mines ahead” and rerouting passersby to a smaller road. In fact, it was that side road that was mined, costing the lives of some military deminers. A few weeks later, four police officers were killed there, including the chief from the northern city of Chernihiv, who had come to help Kherson regain its footing.

The general state of disrepair of weather-beaten roads helped the outgoing Russians disguise their deadly traps; potholes, some covered with soil, provided a convenient place to lay mines. Sometimes, the Russians cut into the asphalt to make holes themselves.

Demining squads go slowly from house to house to ensure that it’s safe for residents to return. Experts say a single home can take up to three days to be cleared. One crew turned up a hand grenade stuffed into a washing machine — the pin placed in such a way that opening the detergent tray would set off an explosion.

The city’s main police station, where detainees were reportedly tortured, is packed with explosives. When demining squads tried to work their way in, part of the building exploded — so they’ve shelved the project for now.

Long-term questions remain. Kherson sits in an agricultural region that produces crops as diverse as wheat, tomatoes and watermelon. The fields are so heavily mined that about 30% of arable land is unlikely to be planted in the spring, Technik said. A cursory look reveals the tops of anti-tank mines poking up from the fields.

Even so, after shelling from Friday evening into Saturday, Kherson resident Oleksandr Chebotariov said life had been even worse under the Russians for himself, his wife and a 3-year-old daughter.

“It’s easier to breathe now,” the 35-year-old radiologist said, only to add, “If the banging doesn’t stop before the new year, I’m going on vacation.”