by Oleksandr Kots
[KP] Telegram dispersed the panic
The morning did not bode well. The phone is bursting with notifications. Telegram is covered by a cytokine storm: “We are renting Kherson?! Why did Russian troops abandon all checkpoints?! The state flag has been removed from the administration! This is the end?!" The abundance of exclamation and question marks, coupled with panic paragraphs written in capital letters, speaks for the fact that people are worried.
This is how you wake up at one wonderful moment, and the “whites” are already in the city. Inopportunely, I remember how in 2014 my friend, military commander Semyon Pegov, found himself in such an unpleasant situation when he discovered at dawn that Slavyansk had been abandoned by the militia, and Ukrainian troops were entering the city.
Standing in my heart, I draw to myself: the last convoy has already crossed to the left bank of the Dnieper, the pontoon crossing has been blown up. The dam on Kakhovka is being shelled by Khaimars...
And, nevertheless, it’s good when you can take a hot shower like that without a schedule. Half of the Donbass is deprived of this "luxury". This is the first thing that struck me in Kherson. No rolling power outages, no gas supply interruptions, no queues at the water carts...
The region almost painlessly returned to its native harbor and became an external Russian territory. Without painful trials through which people would check the loyalty to their choice. Signs of statehood very quickly appeared here, a Russian bank, ATMs and payment terminals at the box office ... By the end of the summer, in fact, it had become a full-fledged Russian region, with its economy, communications and logistics tied to the "mainland".
And then suddenly on you.
Russian flags in Kherson in place
I carefully open the front door, checking for any wire hinting at a stretch. I go to the car. Having taken the emphasis lying down, I examine the bottom for "foreign bodies" ...
- And I know that you are checking there, - a neighbor girl draws in from behind.
- And what, - I get up, dusting off my knees.
- So that there are no cats - so as not to crush.
- Clever, - I praise the quick-witted neighbor. And I'm going downtown.
The day is full of sun and careless passers-by. I drive up the street past the House of Trade Unions and the Naval College, past the City Council and the Ushakov Academy. And here are miracles for you - Russian tricolors flutter in the wind above them. At the welfare building with the same flag on the roof, I turn to the square. There is no state symbol on the former Ukrainian regional administration. Weird. After all, he was there the day before.
The explanation is simple. The Russian Military Civil Administration (VGA) has never lodged in this building - another service was located here, but it moved to the other side a week ago. As, by the way, and VGA. Either the flag was torn off by the wind, or the economic supply manager returned for the state symbol with the inventory number, which was listed on the balance sheet, or someone deliberately decided to tickle the nerves of the excited public ...
Be that as it may, this does not look like systematic work to get rid of Russian state symbols. Tricolors are still hanging on all administrative buildings, and young parents are still smiling from billboards on a white-blue-red background, either in embroidered shirts or in kosovorotkas, advertising maternity capital. Kherson residents do not pay any attention to a building without a flag.
Shops in Kherson are full of goods
I go to the supermarket across the street. Old men begging at the entrance. I remembered the Donetsk "Amstor" on Ilyich of the sample of August 2014. There, poor old men also stood with outstretched hands. Only there the shelves were half empty. And here - bursting with goods. Departments that were empty a week ago are again filled to capacity. Sausages and frankfurters, cheese, and alcohol that had disappeared appeared. Business, as a rule, is the first to smell something wrong and will not work at a loss. And gastronomic abundance, which, however, they can afford, as Klitschko says, “not only everyone”, I took it as a good sign. Who will carry goods to the city, which is about to be handed over.
Here they just brought to life all the merchants who suddenly decided to make payments exclusively in hryvnias or at a predatory rate. Which, of course, hit state employees who receive pensions and salaries in rubles very well.
Evacuation continues
- Guard your car? - a familiar grubby kid at the cafe holds out his dirty palm.
- Guard, - I put 200 rubles into it.
But just in case, I take a table by the window so that the car still remains in front of my eyes. In Donetsk, by the way, on the contrary, restaurant visitors try to sit away from the glass - in case of arrivals.
- Tell me, well, pensions will not be paid now, - the waiter “swims up” in the hookah smoke. “My daughter is disabled. And the Pension Fund is closed.
“They left,” my friend says. - Pensions are now only on the left bank. Alas.
This fact of the inhabitants of Kherson occupies much more than the disappeared flag. Not only the administration and banks, but also social services moved to the eastern bank of the Dnieper ... Accordingly, any payments are now only there. All residents of Kherson are still offered to evacuate - both the ferry crossing and river boats are working. But there is a category of people who, despite all exhortations, will sit to the last. Even without pensions.
However, good news does not always reach from the “mainland”. Either they complain about the bureaucracy, or about callousness, or about slovenliness, as a result of which someone is left without appropriate payments ...
I do not rule out that some of these rumors are spread by the Ukrainian Center for Information and Psychological Operations, which plays on people's feelings. However, in my humble opinion, even the most terrible collective image of a Russian official is still better than the bombing, because of the danger of which the Ukrainian side began the evacuation. These are the harsh realities. The mechanism for receiving and distributing tens of thousands of refugees will inevitably improve. And life is one.
The road from Kherson to Nikolaev
- What's in the trunk? - asks a fighter at a checkpoint near Kherson.
On one of those that, according to panic rumors, we abandoned.
- Humanitarian, - I open the door.
- Copters, a necessary thing, - a fighter passes me.
I'm taking the drone to the front line of the gunners. Along the road - burnt equipment - ours and Ukrainian. The road sign says that to Nikolaev - a little more than 30 kilometers. I move to the side, watching how two pairs of Su-25 attack aircraft take turns attacking, sending missiles towards the enemy. Artillery roars outside the window. Well, it doesn’t look like the surrender of Kherson.
- What will happen to the people if we leave, - my friend in the positions is surprised at my question. - As we stood, so we stand. I want to move forward, of course. This is what is expected of us. People are tired of bad news. Now let's build up some strength...
I give the guys a quadrocopter, which immediately leaves for where it was sorely lacking. I return to Kherson. The streets are already empty. Passions in Telegram are still boiling. Someone curses "zrada", someone is counting on a cunning plan ...
“Nothing is incomprehensible, but very interesting,” my friend states, closing the door of our apartment with three locks.
Above the Antonovsky bridge, at the crossing, they shoot down another portion of the Hymars missiles ...