Nataliia Diadiuk uses a white towel to signal Russian drones that she is a civilian in Ukraine’s Kherson region KOZATSKE, Ukraine -- A white towel on her gate and a white rag in her hand were Ukrainian Nataliia Diadiuk’s only ways to tell Russian drone operators she is a civilian. When a brief ceasefire kicked in on Oct. 27, she had a moment of respite. The 53-year-old is one of a handful of residents left in Kozatske, a riverside village located in the kill zone of Ukraine’s Kherson region less than 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from a Russian-controlled area.
People left for both sides." Diadiuk’s life has been reduced to basic survival: rainwater to drink, firewood gathered around town for heat, a radio she tries to tune in to for news, and the remnants of humanitarian aid that had not reached her in two years until the brief ceasefire that ended Sunday night just days after it began. Going out means dodging every kind of weapon, including mines scattered everywhere. The neighbors she mentions are more often the dead than the few still living nearby.
A team from The gained rare access to a so-called red zone to see firsthand what life in the kill zone looks like, a visit made possible only because of a brief, localized ceasefire tied to the humanitarian aid mission in the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky. Oleshky has drawn the world’s attention, but civilians are trapped in many more places on both sides of the front line. During the mission, Ukrainian regional officials, police, the Ukrainian Red Cross Society and volunteers, with the facilitation of civil-military cooperation specialists, used the rare window of time to reach people on their side of the river, some of them cut off for nearly two years.
In all, 180 people were evacuated from riverside communities and the city of Kherson, including 23 children, the regional administration said. About 140,000 people remain in the Ukrainian-held part of the Kherson region. Before the war, the whole region, now nearly 70% under Russian control, had about 1 million residents.
The riverside is designated a red zone, the highest level of military danger. With the ceasefire over, residents will again face drones, artillery, glide bombs and airdropped mines. Still, many refuse to leave.
Some cannot afford to start over, and others will not abandon the places where they grew up. On the road to Diadiuk’s village, burned-out cars sit abandoned where they were hit, alongside wrecked ground robots that Ukrainians try sending down roads too dangerous for people. A relic of peacetime still stands on that road: “Thank you for keeping the roadside clean.” In the village, many houses are reduced to burned walls.
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