Consider This from NPR - A Ukrainian City Marks A Year Of Loss—And Resistance

Episode Date: February 24, 2023

Kherson was the the first major Ukrainian city to fall to Russian troops. With deep historical ties to Russia, it was not expected to be a center of resistance.But an army of citizen spies defied Moscow's expectations, and helped Ukrainian forces liberate the city last November.A year after Russia launched its invasion, NPR's Joanna Kakissis has the story of Kherson's partisans: teachers and accountants and landscape designers, who became eyes and ears for the Ukrainian military. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

A year ago, people across Ukraine were faced with a choice, one that carried enormous consequences. To stay or to go. The Russian troops were moving so fast, I was afraid. That's Damian, a 16-year-old who NPR's Leila Fadl met a few days after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. When he spoke with her last year, he gave only his first name. It was a dangerous, uncertain time. As troops pushed toward the capital and Russian rockets rained down on Ukrainian cities, Damian made the agonizing decision to leave his home in Lviv and he headed for the Polish border. I wouldn't like to be captured, tortured. I wouldn't like my freedom to be taken.

Is that what you thought would happen to you? Yes. Many international observers expected the country would quickly fall to Russian forces. The roads were packed with cars in the hours after the invasion started, lines formed at gas stations and ATMs. We just left everything and we know that we'll have no possibility to get it. Another 16-year-old, Taisiya Omolchenko, speaking with NPR's Joanna Kakissas last year. She and her family abandoned their apartment in Kyiv with not much more than

the clothes on their backs. Right now, we really don't know where to go, you know? We just traveled by two trains without any tickets. We just make a decision every minute. We don't have a plan. But not everyone chose to go. Despite the danger, many Ukrainians decided to stay. Like a landscape designer named Olga Chupikova in the southern city of Kherson. I conquered my fear. I got a hold of myself because you can't panic when everything is falling apart. And my husband and I decided to help our soldiers. I saw no other way out.

We're Ukrainian, and we can't be anybody else. Consider this. A year after Russia launched its invasion, Ukraine endures. We'll visit a city where a citizen-led resistance helped break a Russian occupation. From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro. It's Friday, February 24th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today, or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply.

It's Consider This from NPR. Friday was a day of remembrance in Ukraine, a chance to reflect on the horror its people have endured over the past year. At a ceremony in St. Sophia Square in Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky honored Ukraine's armed forces and held a moment of silence for those who had died in the fight. It was also a day to celebrate the resilience of the Ukrainian people. May this be proudly proclaimed everywhere, Zelensky said. Ukraine is alive. This is a moment that seemed almost impossible a year ago. The consensus then, among analysts, was that Ukraine's military was overmatched, that the Russians would quickly take control

of the capital. But this war has been full of surprises. One was that Kiev never fell. Another came from the southern port city of Kherson, the first major Ukrainian city to fall to Russian forces. With deep historical ties to Russia, it was not expected to be a center of resistance. But an army of citizen spies defied Moscow's expectations and helped Ukrainian forces liberate the city last November. NPR's Joanna Kakisis has the story of Kherson and its citizens turned partisans. Let's start with the day of the invasion, February 24, 2022. Tatyana Horobtseva, a retired physics teacher,

remembers it again as a beautiful day. She remembers making breakfast and watching from her balcony as the sun rose, turning the sky pink and illuminating green fields bursting with the winter harvest. And then I heard the explosions, and then I saw the explosions. One near the airport, then a second. The third at the gas station that seemed to turn everything red. Hrubtseva started to cry. She was born in Russia and did not believe the Russians would ever invade. Kherson used to be a Russian-speaking city. Many here had friends

and family in Russia. But she says she and her husband are clear about their loyalties. We have a Ukrainian flag on our TV and a poster that says, Putin, get out. That's my poster, by the way. Their daughters in western Ukraine begged them to evacuate. But they stayed, along with their youngest daughter Irina, who wanted to resist. The first days of the invasion were chaotic. Ukrainian soldiers fought to keep Russian paratroopers off the Antonovka Bridge, which crosses the Dnipro River into the city of Kherson.

Serhii, a soldier from a local brigade, remembers wondering why Ukrainian authorities had not blown up the bridge on the first day of the invasion. It should have not blown up the bridge on the first day of the invasion. It should have been blown up. That would have slowed down the Russian troops. Said he would not reveal his last name because he's in the military. He says he got his wife and children out of Kherson and then he turned to a special mission. To destroy the enemy's equipment and enemy troops and also to find and kill collaborators. Many civilians offered to help, including Oksana Pahomi,

a 59-year-old accountant and city council member. With her dyed fire-red hair braided into a rat tail, Pahomi looks like a cross between Cyndi Lauper and the Viking. She and others protested as Russian soldiers took over the city. The resistance was everywhere. I remember this boy with an amputated leg in the central market. He played the guitar and sang the Ukrainian national anthem. It was really brave. Across Kherson, ordinary civilians became partisans, forming espionage cells reporting to the Ukrainian military and security services.

Pahomi joined one cell with at least 30 members. She kept tabs on who was collaborating with Russian forces. I saw there were three types of people in her song. Those who will die for Ukraine, those who will die for Russia, and those who do not care, who are like, Ukraine is OK, but Russia took over now, and that's also OK. Pahomi took photos and videos and eavesdropped on conversations, then passed on the information to Ukraine's security services. Suspected collaborators included some of her own fellow city council members and even some classmates.

We saw a list of those who organized the referendum to join Russia. And on that list was the son of one of my classmates, and she was a teacher of Ukrainian history. Pahomi's closest friend, Olha Chupikova, also became a spy. She lived near the Antonovka Bridge. She served as the eyes and ears of the Ukrainian military. I told them everything I saw about Russian troops, where they live, where they put their vehicles.

Sometimes I pretended I was going to the grocery store or waiting for the bus. I'm not saying I'm agent 007, but I just did whatever made sense to me. With her pixie cut and bright blue eyes, she looks like a Minnesota soccer mom who is about to offer you a freshly baked pie. They wanted us to look average, unremarkable, not easy to, so we could work undetected, as if we were moving between drops of rain. They used Google Maps to find coordinates of Russian convoys and sent them via signal to a contact in Ukraine's military. When cell phone service was weak, she would climb to the roof of her house and throw her phone up in the air, hoping for a signal to send her messages. I was really scared the first time I was on the roof.

We're not professional spies. We are amateurs. But if not us, then who? Russian troops were watching everyone closely. Chupikova says residents were getting arrested for simply giving Russian soldiers dirty looks. Tatiana Kharabtseva, the retired teacher who watched the invasion from her balcony, worried for her daughter Irina. She says Irina spent months driving all over the city, giving rides to nurses and doctors secretly helping injured Ukrainians.

And then on May 13th, Irina's 37th birthday, two cars pulled up outside the house. There were 11 guys armed to the teeth with their faces covered, wearing military uniforms and waving machine guns and pistols. Six went upstairs to our apartment and right to Irina's room. She didn't deny anything. She said, yes, I'm a Ukrainian patriot, and I hate you. And they took her away. Hundreds of others disappeared, too, including the elected mayor of Kherson, who was arrested in June.

By the end of summer, several members of Oleksandr Dyakov's espionage cell had also been arrested. Dyakov, a shy, bearded apartment manager, had spent months spying on Russian-installed politicians for Ukraine's security services. I knew that sooner or later the Russians would find me too. They arrested me when I was hiding at a friend's house. They covered his head and took him to a prison cell. He says the Russian soldiers beat him repeatedly and also tortured him with electric shocks. They kicked me so badly in my leg and kept saying, we're going to break it. My leg got infected.

I begged for a doctor. After more than two weeks of detention, he was loaded into a van and driven to what looked like the outskirts of town. I thought they were taking me not to the doctor, but to the forest. To the forest so they could execute you. Yeah. Had they done that to other people, you know? I know many people who died. The Russians ended up taking Diakov to a hospital.

And a doctor there helped him escape instead of returning him to Russian custody. The underground resistance was having an impact. Politicians installed by the Russians were assassinated. When Ukraine got sophisticated missiles from the U.S., military officials say the partisans helped Ukrainian troops target sites like the Anton the other side of the Dnipro River. On the night of November 10, Oleksandr Dyakov heard a convoy of vehicles outside his bedroom. They were blasting Ukrainian music, and they realized our guys were entering the city. Every day we were waiting for this. By the next morning, Ukrainian troops controlled the city. Residents poured into the streets and cheered. Oksana Pohomi, the city councilwoman, helped replace Russian flags with Ukrainian ones.

Her former classmate, who had helped Russians try to annex Kherson tried to stop her. She said, what are you doing? Maybe the Russians will come back. Pahomi says the classmate and her family soon left for Russia. Other pro-Russian residents fled across the Dnipro River to a part of the Kherson region still occupied by Russian forces. More than three months after liberation, Russian forces remain across the river, less than a mile away. And they hit Kherson every day with rockets, missiles or artillery. More than 80 civilians have died. Only 60,000 people of the city's pre-war population of 300,000 remain.

Oh man, that smells nice. Pahomi now runs a volunteer bakery with her friend Olha Chupikova, the one who used to spy on the Russian military near the Antonovka Bridge. They are dusted with flour as they show us around. Pahomi says they deliver the free bread to residents. We never try to force anyone to stay because not everyone can take it. I know people who don't leave their homes. I know people who could handle the shelling at first,

but then something broke inside them after the shelling killed people. They stopped eating and drinking, and I said, it's time to leave. Many partisans are still missing, presumed to be somewhere in Russian custody. Tatyana Kharabtseva's daughter, Irina, is among them. Kharabtseva is pleading with her fellow ethnic Russians to free her daughter. Harapsova's Russian roots are now a deep source of heartache. I feel ashamed, she says, as if it was me personally who started this terrible war. NPR's Joanna Kakissis in Kherson. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.