“We are at the end of our strength because we are being bombarded,” says a resident of Kherson

In Ukraine, not a night goes by without a new drone or missile attack on the country’s major cities. One of them is particularly targeted: Kherson, on the right bank of the Dnieper River.

Liberated for a year, the city of Kherson breathes to the rhythm of Russian strikes, launched from the other side of the river. More than a hundred bombs have been falling there every day for months. A strategy of exhaustion to fix Ukrainian soldiers in one point and force them to use their ammunition. Strategy of exhaustion also of the population, forced to live under constant fire from the enemy.

Nights spent in shelters

Every evening, the bombings resume, or rather they never stop. So we must carry out the same ritual : in the dark, you have to push the metal door, go down fifteen steps, lift a curtain… And like every evening for months, find the same people, or almost. The lady on the first floor, the dad on the fourth floor and his two sons. The camp beds are lined with blankets. A Christmas tree is lit in the corner. The old lady in the fuchsia dressing gown stuck her headphones in her ears, so as not to hear anything. “We got used to it, it’ll be fine“, she says.

“People are afraid, it shoots day and night”

Maryna, resident of Kherson in Ukraine

at franceinfo

And then there is Alla and her wool hat. Last month, on the fourth floor, at 8:30 p.m., a missile flew through his living room and devastated everything, causing an apocalypse of dust and scrap metal. “We survive monstrous strikes, mortars, rockets. These dirty Russians think that there are missiles, tanks, soldiers here. But here, apart from retirees, there is no one. We are at the end of our strength because we are being bombarded. But they won’t achieve anything“, she says.

The missile fell just as the Ukrainian army managed to regain a foothold on the left bank of the Dnieper, from where the Russians bombard Kherson without respite. Maryna takes care of the shelter. “When there are intense Grad or missile strikes, there are up to 40 people here“, she explains. “People come down to rest, to sleep because they are working”she adds.

Ukrainian soldiers lack ammunition to fight back

Outside, the drones have also gone on the attack. “We survived a year of Russian occupation and finally our soldiers arrived. We were so happy, but of course, scared when the Russians started bombing us from the other side. It was terrifying. And the more we pushes them back, the more they respond, with ever more heavy artillery“, deplores this civilian.

Everyone here has noticed that the Ukrainians can no longer keep up. Ammunition is running out. In the beds, the bodies become still. When the curfew lifts, the shelter empties of these tired silhouettes. Everyone leaves, waiting for the bomb, the drone, the missile that will come and strike. In the distance, the cannons continued to thunder.