Kherson – The Southern Outpost Against Russian Aggression
On 11 November 2022, Ukrainian forces liberated Kherson – the only regional centre captured by the Russian army since the start of its full-scale invasion. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February 2022, the Kherson region has been under constant attack by the armed forces of the Russian Federation. On the first day of the invasion, Russian forces crossed the administrative border of Kherson region from annexed Crimea and began occupying the region. In early March, after heavy fighting, the Armed Forces of Ukraine lost control of the regional centre, Kherson, and Russian troops occupied almost the entire region.
In late March 2022, the Ukrainian Armed Forces launched a counteroffensive in the western part of the region, liberating several settlements. By 11 November, they had de-occupied the right bank of the Kherson region, including Kherson itself. Thus, Kherson became the only major regional centre that the Russian army had managed to capture since the full-scale invasion but was ultimately unable to hold.
During the occupation, Russian forces, with the help of local collaborators, subjected Ukrainian residents to extensive terror. Representatives of the so-called occupation administrations kidnapped pro-Ukrainian politicians, ATO veterans, Orthodox Church of Ukraine clergy, journalists, and volunteers. Torture chambers were set up in Kherson and throughout the region, where Ukrainian citizens were subjected to daily torture and killings. Despite this, in March 2022, local residents continued to hold peaceful demonstrations against the Russian occupation forces, risking their freedom and lives. In Kherson, anti-occupation rallies were regularly held at Freedom Square, but by the end of March, mass protests were banned by the occupiers. Nevertheless, Kherson residents returned to protest, even as Russian forces responded with stun grenades and tear gas. On 27 April, another peaceful protest took place against the proposed pseudo-referendum on joining Kherson region to Russia, which was forcibly dispersed by Russian troops.
In addition to war crimes, Russia pursued a policy of rapid Russification of the local population on the occupied territories, particularly targeting Ukrainian children. Teaching in schools was permitted only in Russian, even in predominantly Ukrainian-speaking areas, and Ukrainian textbooks were banned and confiscated. Russian teachers were brought into the occupied areas with pre-prepared guidelines on re-educating Ukrainian children. Families who wished to continue educating their children in Ukrainian were forced to do so in secret, away from the eyes of Russian "gauleiters."
Alongside crimes against humanity, repression, and killings, Russian occupiers also committed environmental crimes, most notably the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam. This resulted in a severe ecological disaster, flooding numerous settlements downstream along the Dnipro River.
Like other occupied regions of Ukraine, Kherson became a hub of resistance against the Russian occupation and its local collaborators. Kherson partisans, in coordination with the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Defence Intelligence, and Special Operations Forces, gathered and transmitted intelligence on the movements and concentrations of Russian troops, military equipment, and ammunition depots. There were also numerous targeted operations against state traitors and collaborators who had pledged allegiance to Putin’s criminal regime.
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Although Ukrainian forces recaptured the city of Kherson in the southern counteroffensive of November 2022, Russian authorities moved the region’s administrative centre to occupied Henichesk and continue to claim Kherson as the official centre of the occupied region. For more than two years, Kherson’s residents have endured constant shelling by Russian forces from the temporarily occupied left bank – mortar attacks, tank fire, artillery shelling, airstrikes, and the mining of coastal zones are the harsh realities for Kherson today. Despite the bombardment, destruction, and constant danger, Kherson’s residents remain in the city, awaiting the de-occupation of the remaining areas and the victory over Russian invaders, proving by their resilience that Kherson is Ukraine.