KALYNIVSKE, Ukraine (AP) — As night falls in Tatiana Trofimenko’s village in southern Ukraine, she pours sunflower oil given to her by aid workers into a jar and attaches a lid with a wick. With a match she lights the makeshift lantern.
“This is our electricity,” says Trofimenko, 68.
It has been 11 weeks since Ukrainian forces seized their town, Kalynivske, in Kherson province, from Russian occupiers. But the liberation has not reduced the difficulties for the residents, both those who return home and those who never left. In the height of winter, this remote area not far from the front has no running water or electricity. The sound of war is never far away.
Russian forces withdrew from the western side of the Dnieper River that divides the province, but still control the eastern bank. An almost constant barrage of shells that continues to thunder a few kilometers away and the danger of mines left behind make many Ukrainians afraid to walk away, turn normality into an elusive dream and cloud a strategic military victory.
Even so, the residents have been gradually returning to Kalynivske and prefer to live without basic supplies, relying on humanitarian aid and under the constant threat of shelling than to continue as displaced persons in another part of the country. Staying is an act of defiance in the face of relentless Russian attacks that seek to make the zone uninhabitable, they say.
“This territory is liberated. I’m sorry,” Trofimenko said. “Before there were no people on the streets. They were empty. Some people evacuated, some were hiding in their houses.”
“Now, when you go out on the street, you see happy people walking around,” he said.
The Associated Press followed a United Nations humanitarian caravan to the town Saturday as blankets, sunlamps, fuel cans, bedding and warm clothing were brought to a local distribution center warehouse.
Russian forces captured Kherson province in the first days of the war. Most of the nearly 1,000 inhabitants of Kalynivske stayed in their homes during the occupation. Most did not have the health or strength to leave, others did not have the means to escape.
Gennadiy Shaposhnikov is lying on the sofa in a dark room, with plates stacked next to him.
The 83-year-old man has cancer so advanced that the pain makes it difficult for him to speak. When a mortar destroyed the back of his house, neighbors came to his rescue and repaired it with tarps. They still come every day, to make sure he’s fed and cared for.
“Visit again, soon,” is all he manages to say.
Oleksandra Hryhoryna, 75, moved in with a neighbor when missiles destroyed her small house near the city center. The frail figure of her steps over the shell casings and shrapnel that litter her front lawn. She scrambles up the pile of bricks, what’s left of the stairs, to the front door.
The woman pushed her bicycle to the distribution center and left with a bag full of canned food, her main source of livelihood these days.
But the main problem is the lack of electricity, Hryhoryna explained. “We use homemade lanterns with oil and we survived that way.”
The main street that leads to his house is dotted with remnants of the war, like a haunting museum of what once was and everyone hopes never to return. Destroyed Russian tanks rust in the fields. The cylinders of the anti-tank missiles shine among the grasses. Cluster bomb munitions are sometimes seen sticking out of the ground.
Red signs with a skull warn pedestrians not to get too close.
In their hasty retreat, the Russians left behind empty ammunition boxes, trenches, and canvas-covered tents. Also a jacket, and for a few kilometers you can see men’s underwear hanging from the bare branches. And as the Russians continue to launch attacks to recapture lost ground in Kherson, terrified residents sometimes find it hard to feel that the occupying forces have really left.
“I am very scared,” Trofimenko said. “Sometimes I even scream. I am very, very scared. And I fear that shells will fall on us again, and that (the fighting) will start again. This is the most terrible thing there is.”
The hardships in the town extend to all of Kherson, from the provincial capital of the same name to the constellation of towns scattered among farmlands. Ukrainian troops recaptured territory west of the Dnieper River in November after a major counteroffensive that led to a Russian troop withdrawal, described as one of the biggest Ukrainian victories in the 11-month war.
The United Nations has redoubled its assistance, with cash aid for 133,000 people and food for 150,000. Many people in Kalynivske said that food aid was the only reason they had something to eat.
“One of the biggest challenges is that the people who are there are the most vulnerable. They are mainly the elderly, many of whom have some kind of disability, people who could not leave the area and depend on aid organizations and local authorities that work non-stop,” said Saviano Abreu, spokesman for the United Nations Coordination Office. of Humanitarian Affairs.
The attacks are constant.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense reports almost daily incidents of rockets, artillery and mortars launched against the city of Kherson and the towns in the area. Most fall closer to the banks near the front, but that doesn’t make those living further away feel any safer. A missile struck Kochubeivka, a town north of Kalynivske, on Friday, killing one person.
“Kherson managed to resume most of the essential services, but the problem is that the hostilities continue to make it a challenge to ensure that they are maintained,” Abreu said. “Since December it has been getting worse and worse. The number of attacks and hostilities is only growing”.
Without electricity, there is no way to pump drinking water into the pipes. Many line up to collect water from wells, but residents complain that too much is needed for daily needs.
Many look for firewood near the town to keep warm. This is not without its dangers either.
“Before, we could easily take wood from the forest, but now there are mines everywhere,” said Oleksandr Zheihin, 47.
Everyone in Kalynivske knows the story of Nina Zvarech. The woman went out to the forest for firewood and died when she stepped on a mine.
Her body was there for a month, because her family was too scared to go looking for her.
