ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine – Last month, a message was smuggled to friends from 10 Ukrainian prisoners in Russian-occupied territory. The men, along with hundreds of other civilian prisoners who had been missing for weeks since the Russian withdrawal from the city of Kherson, said they were alive but in urgent need of help.
“They have asked us to contact their relatives and tell the media that they are still alive,” says Andriy, a former detainee and friend of some of the detainees, who, like others interviewed for this article, is only allowed to travel for security reasons. mentioned his first name. “They are tortured and detained without any legal basis.”
The withdrawal of Russian troops from entire swathes of territory in eastern and southern Ukraine last fall raised hopes among many Ukrainians that their imprisoned relatives would be released and that the country’s armed forces would build on that momentum and quickly move into more territory. would retake the region.
But the Russian retreat proved to be so orderly that even the prisoners were evacuated, and Ukraine’s counter-offensive in the south has largely been halted as heavy fighting is concentrated on the eastern front.
But for families living in the occupied territories, or whose relatives are being held there, a new Ukrainian counter-offensive cannot come soon enough, even if it carries additional risks.
Some people interviewed at a border crossing near the town of Zaporizhzhia – the only entry point for civilians traveling into Ukrainian territory from Russian-occupied southern Ukraine – said they were fleeing heavy bombing but hoped for a quick victory for Ukraine. Families of detainees held by the Russians were both terrified for their safety and desperate to see them rescued.
Ukrainians who arrived at a registration center in mud-covered cars last month described an increasingly desperate situation in the occupied territories, with frequent shelling, loud explosions at night from long-range Ukrainian attacks, and life at war with power outages and drug shortages.
“It is impossible to live there,” says 81-year-old Lyubov, who waited with her daughter at the registration center in Zaporizhia for transport to the capital Kiev. Her apartment in the city of Mariupol was destroyed, she said, and health care was scarce.
A family arrived from Nova Kakhovka, a town on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, north of the town of Kherson, which they say was half destroyed by artillery fire from both sides. “It flew over our heads,” said Oleh, 60.
There is little doubt that the Ukrainian army would like to push deeper into Russian-held territory to the south and further towards Crimea if possible, and pressure is mounting to launch such an attack.
Military analysts generally agree that while Ukraine remains in a defensive position for now, a renewed southern offensive to cut off Russian supply and communication routes to Crimea is the next major strategic goal.
“I have always said that Zaporizhzhia is the most strategic direction. It is the direction of Zaporizhzhia that can turn the tide of the war,” said Colonel Roman Kostenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and former commander of a Ukrainian special operations force, Alpha.
An offensive south of Zaporizhzhia towards the Russian-held cities of Melitopol and Berdyansk would split Russian forces and undermine their hold on Crimea, he said. But he warned that he doesn’t expect any advances until spring, and even then only if Ukraine gets additional help from the West in modern tanks, armored fighting vehicles and guns, some of which are now being promised.
Gen. Ben Hodges, former US military commander in Europe, said Ukrainian attacks on Melitopol, a logistics hub, and on the Kerch Strait bridge connecting Crimea to mainland Russia have exposed Russian vulnerabilities in Crimea had already demonstrated.
“If the two main lines of communication are already damaged or could be disrupted, Crimea is starting to look more and more like a trap,” General Hodges said in a recent Twitter Spaces interview with the Mriya reporta popular pro-Ukraine open source forum.
But a southern offensive will be even more difficult than the counter-offensives this fall in the northeast and south, both military analysts warned. And residents leaving the region said the number of Russian troops in southern Ukraine had increased significantly in recent weeks with the arrival of troops withdrawing from western Kherson and joining others arriving from mainland Russia. Russian forces have been building up defensive positions deeper behind the front lines in recent weeks, Ukrainian and US officials have said.
The outward journey was also difficult for Ukrainian citizens, hampered by long delays and security checks at Russian checkpoints. During the fighting, a bridge near the crossing was destroyed, forcing volunteers from the local fire service to tow cars through deep mud along an alternate route.
It took 49-year-old Lyudmila and a friend two days to escape from the occupied part of the Kherson region, where they had visited her parents, she said. Her parents wanted to leave, but were not up to the difficult journey, she said.
The two women spent a night in the city of Melitopol, where they heard Ukrainian attacks land nearby. “It was loud; it was close,” she said.
The Russian troops were digging new fortifications, erecting concrete barriers and laying mines, several civilians said, but there were also signs that they lacked confidence in their situation.
“I have the impression that they don’t know what they are doing,” 69-year-old Lyuba, a retired businesswoman, said of the Russian soldiers. “Maybe because I rarely see them sober, it’s impossible to talk to them.”
A school housing Russian soldiers near her home in the Kherson region had been hit by an artillery strike that killed dozens of them, she said. And when she chided a Ukrainian acquaintance for befriending a group of Russian soldiers, he told her that the soldiers had said they wanted to surrender to the Ukrainian army when it reached the city.
Families of two of the detainees who smuggled their message out spoke to DailyExpertNews to advocate for action to save their relatives. The Russians likely took the captives to use as human shields or trade as hostages, they said.
“I can’t think or feel anything because it’s such a mess,” says Viktoriya Nesterenko, 53, whose son, Vitaliy Cherkashyn, is one of 10 detainees.
The men were being held in the town of Novotroitske in the Russian-occupied part of the Kherson region, she said. She was concerned about the Ukrainian artillery strikes, especially when she learned that there was an attack on the city where they are being held.
“I just hope they’re in some kind of basement cell.”
She called for the men to be involved in a prisoner exchange, but complained that the Ukrainian government was focused on the release of military prisoners of war and paid little attention to the plight of civilians.
“I don’t know what to do, but we can’t keep silent,” she said.
“I really hope they will have to withdraw,” said Anna Trubych, 24, whose boyfriend, Vladyslav Andryushchenko, 27, is also one of the 10 detainees. She received a photo with the message. “He’s changed a lot,” she said. “I was shocked.”
Oleksandr Chubko and Kateryna Lachina contributed reporting.
