‘Missiles fly before your eyes’: Brave volunteers drive Ukrainian families under fire from Kherson | World News
The ground shook and smoke billowed, witnesses said, as Ukrainian rockets hit a key bridge in the city controlled by Russian forces as families waited to flee.
A major Ukrainian offensive to retake Kherson has fueled an increase in women and children wanting to escape the southern port city and surrounding area, according to volunteers helping people leave.
Their hope is back when the region is in Ukrainian hands.
“Everybody understands that the city of Kherson is having a serious war,” said one volunteer driver, who asked not to be named.
He said the core concern was that Russian forces would destroy Kherson if forced to withdraw. He compared it with the way the Russian army destroyed the southern city of Mariupol, as opposed to capturing it from the Ukrainian side in the first months of the war
“I think every sane person understands that it is better to leave and wait somewhere else for the time being, especially if you have children,” the volunteer said.
“We don’t want a second Mariupol or something like that. But if that happens to Kherson, then why wait inside the city? Better to move out and wait outside.”
Many have been forced to leave their husbands, animals, and even their parents behind
Ukraine has ordered a ban on information since it launched what could be the most significant attack of the war so far last Monday.
Officials have used social media solely to give hints of the fighting that is believed to be taking place from multiple directions in the countryside around Kherson.
A photo allegedly posted by government-backed accounts on Sunday night shows a Ukrainian flag being hoisted above the town of Vysokopillya, in the Kherson region, south of Kryvhi Rih, one of the cities in southern Ukraine where the attack took place. place.
Meaning that eyewitness accounts from people fleeing the area are among the only independent testimonies to show what was going on.
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The volunteer driver, 58, from Kherson city, said he started transporting evacuees to a refugee center in the city more than 100 miles northeast about a month ago – a services that he said are in growing demand.
“Many people want to leave,” he said. “Even those who didn’t want to go a week ago are asking and trying to escape.”
He claims Russian families moved by the occupiers to Kherson after they captured the city in the first days of the war are also trying to retreat, seeking to move to other parts of Russia-held Ukraine. like Crimea.
“We started to see them [the Russians] move their families out – children, wives,” he said.
“They understand [what is coming]. They’re not stupid… Russia can’t hold Kherson, so there’s only one thing left to do, and that’s to leave.”
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‘The ground shakes’
Looking tired and engaged, the volunteer driver described what he saw in the city of Kherson on Thursday during his most recent rescue mission to deport Ukrainian women and children.
“The ground shook. Smoke billowed up. How to describe it? In a word – war,” he said, speaking at the refugee center in Zaporizhzhiawhere he finally brought them.
He said: “When I saw a rocket flying in front of my eyes, falling down, I was not the one who was scared, but both women and children were terrified.
An armored truck of the pro-Russian army was parked in Kherson earlier this summer
The driver was already at one end of the Antonivskyi bridge, waiting to use a small ferry across the Dnipro River to leave the city.
“We thought about turning around and walking away from labor. But the desire to leave the territory was so strong that the mothers agreed to wait.
‘We thought about turning back… but the desire to cross the river was too strong’
Ferry crossings have become the only way for people to get in or out of the city by vehicle after Ukraine targeted all bridges in recent weeks in a strategic move to cut off military supply lines. Russian team, both during the offensive construction and now. that it is in progress.
The driver said he and his passengers had to wait from 6:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. to get off the ferry, partly because of the missile attack, but also because Russian forces were prioritizing loading their military vehicles on board. and across the river.
Epic journey
Even when they were finally allowed to board, another attack struck while they were on the water – hitting the bridge precisely and leaving the ferry unscathed.
“We prayed,” said the volunteer, who spoke extensively about his Christian faith as a source of strength. “We trusted that God would save us…and it happened.”
One of his passengers, a 17-year-old boy, said the crossing was the scariest part of the two-day journey out of Kherson. It consisted of spending the night in a village and being intercepted and interrogated at various Russian checkpoints.
“There was a lot of banging,” the young man said. He was traveling with his mother and two sisters. “We’re afraid we might not even be able to leave the city.”
This woman said her house was destroyed by a rocket
Another mother who was on the bus with her young son, said she decided to flee Kherson when the Ukraine offensive began, fearing what might happen if they stayed and got stuck in the water. Fire. She said that her husband stayed behind to take care of his elderly parents, because of his old age and weak health, so he ran away.
“I don’t know how to explain to you this inner fear,” she said, describing how she felt as the war raged continuously over the past few days.
“It was getting worse and worse, so we packed up our things and left. It was hard to leave the house, our husbands, our animals, our parents – difficult.”
Ukraine’s ground offensive, supported by Western weapons, appears to be focused on recapturing towns and villages in the Kherson region, while using long-range precision strikes against enemy forces. Russian supply lines and ammunition depots around the city of Kherson.
Russia’s impediment to Russia’s ability to maintain weapons, food, and other supplies will force it to retreat, as happened in the battle for Kyiv in the early stages of the war.
Recapturing Kherson would be a major coup for Ukraine and a major physical and psychological blow to Russia. But Russian commanders have fortified their positions on the west bank of the Dnipro River as a precaution, potentially setting the stage for a fierce skirmish.
