“Chaos reigns” – hangover in liberated Kherson Eyewitnesses: Mass violence during protests in northwestern Iran

Serhiy Syniy sits in front of a stack of white bread and explains his plan: “Today 50 percent will go out, the rest in the next few days. And there won’t be water until tomorrow.”

The decision is of course difficult for the 73-year-old pastor. “Hungry people stand there in the cold for hours for a loaf of bread and a bottle of water. But I have to send most of them away again,” he says, angrily talking to himself. ‘Do you think I will? Of course not.” Syniy suddenly seems angry about his own plan. But he doesn’t see anyone else.

In front of the small Baptist church of Syniy on the outskirts of Kherson in southern Ukraine, impatient people push through the gate. They have been waiting for hours in the drizzle, hoping for water and the mountain of white bread that Syniy is sitting on. The situation is tense and the growing desperation of the people is palpable.

Yesterday there was another scuffle over the last water bottles, the pastor reports. “People are emotionally overwhelmed. They attack each other because they can’t get by on five liters per family. You can barely brush your teeth or wash your hair with it.”

“It’s Mayhem”

After the liberation by Ukrainian troops about a week ago, there is a humanitarian emergency in Kherson: there is no electricity, no running water and there is also a shortage of gas and fuel. Before Kremlin troops left the city, they blew up the region’s power supply and water infrastructure. A clear war crime by the Russian military, among others, like the numerous alleged crimes of torture in the region. Messages reach the city only through aid organizations or authorities. Most shops are closed.

But not all aid is well organized: Synyi criticizes the fact that the trucks sent by the Ukrainian government simply drive their goods to the central Freedom Square and unload there. “There is chaos.” All too often, only those who have the strength to stand out in the cold for hours get anything.

But how else to organize? The 73-year-old begins to think. How can the weakest be cared for, the elderly and infirm, who are alone in their apartments and may not have noticed the Russian retreat yet? The pastor, who had previously thanked God and the Ukrainian army and promised his congregation a better future, suddenly began to cry. “I fight my own battle within me,” he says, referring to his cancer, which is already affecting the bones.

Sometimes he doubts whether he can do it all: his illness, the chaos in the city, the people for whom he has to be strong. “Eight months of constant fear under Russian occupation, now this helplessness.” In addition, a German volunteer organization that had promised him help the day before suddenly stopped contacting him. “Did I Disappoint You?” asks the Reverend, growing more insecure by the minute.

The scuffle and shouting in the ranks, the doubts of Reverend Synyi – these are scenes describing a new reality in Kherson, which has just been liberated. A week ago, pictures went viral of the happy people of Kherson hugging Ukrainian soldiers and waving blue and yellow flags. Now the disillusionment is gradually spreading.

The people enjoy their newfound freedom, but have to fight again to survive. There is a hangover in Kherson.

Anger at authorities in Kherson

“We live in a collective depression, just like before the war,” says Alexei Sandakov, who runs a video agency and table tennis club in Kherson. The 44-year-old has been cycling through the city for eight months and secretly filming the occupiers, he says. He sent the material to international media “to show the world what is really happening in Kherson,” says Sandakov.

His euphoria has also partly evaporated, instead impatience is growing. “When the invaders came to Kherson, on the second day there were five trucks of gasoline parked in the city. “Why can’t our authorities do that?” asks the 44-year-old. The lack of fuel in particular is a huge problem: the coveted fuel could power generators and water pumps, supplying electricity and water. “But most gas stations are broken or robbed,” says Sandakov.

In fact, almost the entire city is completely blacked out. Almost no house has electricity. Only here and there you hear a generator rattling, kept alive by the last fuel the Russians left behind. Sandakov’s production company or Sinyi’s church are among the few rich, among the spiritual elite of Kherson.

Sandakov, who studied business law in Bielefeld and worked as a tax consultant in Germany until 2017, considers the local authorities incompetent and corrupt. “The mismanagement of the city was the main reason why the Russians were able to get here so quickly. The political class in Kherson was bought by Moscow.”

In fact, the then mayor of Kherson, Ihor Kolychayev, surrendered the city to the Russians without a fight. Members of the city council were also rumored to have leaked plans for the surrounding minefields to the enemy. Russian armored troops were able to march through southern Ukraine from Crimea in a blitzkrieg. After three days they were in the regional capital, on March 2 they had complete control.

“Who heard about Kherson before the war? It was a forgotten region,” says Alexei Sandakov. “I don’t see it being any different now.” Yanushevich, the governor of the Kherson region, mainly does ‘own PR’ instead of organizing his own aid. “He is waiting for international help.” The 44-year-old therefore wanted to quickly get out of the city, to Kiev, “to take a deep breath for a few days”.

Russia begins to bomb the city

When the Kremlin troops withdrew from Kherson in early November, they left a message for the Ukrainians: We will be back. On the one hand that was a threat, on the other hand it was an attempt by the Russian military to sell the withdrawal as a temporary measure and hide their defeat from the home crowd.

The first days of the liberation passed peacefully. Instead of the dreaded “death trap” that Ukrainian government adviser Michailo Podolyak warned of in a t-online interview, selfies were taken and soldiers kissed. Even President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit last Monday did not tempt the Russians to aim nearby artillery shells at the city.

That changed on Wednesday. Russian troops, believed to be from the village of Oleshky, shelled the riverbank of Kherson with mortar shells. The next day it arrives in port. The impacts are clearly heard in the city, as is the roar of Ukrainian return fire.

But the artillery battle around the Dnipro doesn’t seem to bother most. As the invisible bullets fly over their heads left and right, the Chersonese line up for SIM cards and diapers. Those who dare, drive to the Dnipro and fill river water, within sight of the Russian-controlled territory.

Russian saboteurs and prisoners on the loose

There is a commotion at the police station in Kherson. Heavily armed police and soldiers march through the corridors, past citizens with missing passports and other daily concerns. The window at the counter is riddled with bullets and only moderately covered with tape. A woman reports a car theft, a moderately motivated cop writes something in his notepad.

“We’re just trying to control the chaos,” says a police officer with an assault rifle and tired eyes. But the security authorities have to deal not only with Russian saboteurs, but also with free-roaming criminals: “Before the Russians left, they freed murderers, thieves and other prisoners from the prisons. Today alone we have recaptured 34,” the official said.

The artillery duel of the previous day evokes bad premonitions. The mood in the city is more tense, which is particularly noticeable in the actions of the security forces. Freedom Square was closed to traffic on Friday, and fierce police officers ordered cars into side streets. Hundreds of people still walk around the now world-famous square, most of the residents have come because of the relief goods that are transported here. The flags of Ukraine also flutter in the wind only occasionally.

‘They even stole floors from the apartments’

Pastor Sinyi has now regained his courage. But even though the coming weeks and months would be tough in Kherson, he still remembers the horrors of the Russian occupation. The 73-year-old reports cases of soldiers ripping toilets, sinks and even linoleum floors from apartments. “Just before they left, they loaded up their trucks and drove off.”

He preached every week in his Sunday mass for liberation. “Even though many had gotten used to the new situation and thought they would live in Russia forever.”

In the end, Reverend Synyi finally got the hoped-for aid packages. According to their own statements, the German volunteers from the House of Hope organization loaded 2.5 tons of pasta, canned meat and hygiene products into the churchman’s yard on Saturday.

“I’m over the moon,” the pastor finally wrote in a text message. “We distributed most of the boxes immediately.” And the mountain of white bread that Synyi guarded for days as a shepherd guards his sheep? “It’s almost up.”