"We can manage without water and electricity, as long as we’re still with Ukraine." Kherson comes back to life

Liberated Kherson is the greatest embodiment of one of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s evening video addresses, known as "Without you". [Addressing Russians directly, Zelenskyy asked four rhetorical questions about whether Ukrainians would prefer to be "Without gas (electricity, water, food), or without you?" Each time the answer was "Without you."]

Since the occupiers retreated, there has been no water or electricity in the city for more than a week, and a phone connection is only just starting to appear. But the people of Kherson don’t seem to be too upset by this. The main thing, after all, is that there are no more Russians in their city.

Locals say they spent the nine months of the occupation in their apartments and basements. They all had two phones - a smartphone that they kept at home, and a "push-button" one which they took with them when going to the local bazaar or visiting relatives.

"I didn't even know there were so many people left in the city. There was almost no one on the streets," said Andrii, a local man who sheltered Ukrainska Pravda journalists in the newly liberated city after 11 November.

The only thing that works in his house is the gas stove.

A few steps away from Andrii's apartment, a poster featuring the Russian flag and the slogan "Into the future - together with Russia" is still hanging.

There are dozens of posters like this: "Kherson - a city with Russian history", "Russians and Ukrainians - one people", etc. Adults and children wrapped in Ukrainian flags autographed by Ukrainian soldiers walk past them all the time, showing that these are definitely separate nations.

Ukrainska Pravda was lucky enough to see Kherson and its people in the first few days after the liberation and record how this vast city, home to 300,000 people before the war, is coming back to life after the gruelling occupation.

Watch Ukrainska Pravda’s report that shows local people taking plastic bottles to the Dnipro River to collect water, opening the first stalls in the local market, and calling their children to tell them that the Ukrainian army has liberated them from the Russians.

Nazarii Mazyliuk, Olha Kyrylenko