of the inhabitants of the south Ukrainian city of Kherson She said her city has been like a “zombie apocalypse” since it was taken over by Russian forces.
The woman, who asked to be identified as Tania, said in an interview on CNN International that the invasion caused physical and psychological losses.
“It’s very hard to live in such conditions physically because you can’t do the things you did before the war,” she said. “You can’t go out as much, and you can’t breathe fresh air, so it’s physically hard.”
“Psychologically, it’s more difficult because you see all those empty shelves in the stores, and you see all these gunmen coming out to walk beside you, near the street, and it’s terrifying because they’re all over town. So it’s hard,” she continued.
The new Russian leadership of the Ukraine’s Kherson region announced today its plans Submit an official application to become part of the Russian Federation.
“The authorities of the Kherson region will appeal to the President of Russia with a request to annex the region to Russia,” said a statement broadcast by the new Telegram channel, which appears to be linked to the pro-Russian administration.
Tanya said she was afraid that Russian soldiers would patrol the city and that no one she knew wanted to be part of Russia.
“I don’t know anyone who wants to join Crimea – like a part of the Russian Federation. I don’t know anyone in Kherson, I just talk to them on the street, they don’t want to be part of the Russian Federation, they saw what they did.”
Tanya said many people had left the city and it was pretty empty by 3pm local time.
“It feels like a zombie apocalypse; there’s no one here. In the morning, there were a lot of people but now I see our city is slowly dying unfortunately,” she said.
The woman told CNN that she wants to leave the city – as many of her friends have already done – but it is very difficult because there are no official evacuation lanes and dozens of Russian checkpoints.
She said the city’s train station has not been operating since the Russians took control of the city, and Russian forces are now using it as a base.