Interview with Donald Flett, Survivor of the Russian occupation of Kherson

Lightly edited for content and clarity

Hello. This is Matthew Parish from the Lviv Herald, and I'm here today with Donald Flett, who's a US citizen from New Jersey and who lived through the Russian occupation of Kherson, which was occupied from 24 February 2022 until ninth through eleventh November 2022.

And Donald's going to tell us a little bit about his experiences, living through Russian occupation as one of the very few, if only, foreigners who stayed in Kherson throughout that period. So, Donald, I'm going to start by asking you, when did you move to Kherson and why?

Well, I moved to Kherson, from New Jersey, August, 30th 2019, and I came with my lady friend who was diagnosed with cancer, so she could be in Kherson, her home city, with her family, her friends, her doctors.

So that that's that's why I originally came.

And when it became obvious that the Russians were invading Ukraine, you decided to stay in Kherson, notwithstanding the the obvious danger.

Initially, I didn't have any choice. I mean, we couldn't leave. Right? The the Russians came across the Antonovka Bridge 06:30 in the in the morning, you know, 02/24/2022. And I got a call from my I got a call from my attorney that the war had started, and and they were they were on the bridge. And I could hear the explosions at that point. But from that point, I really couldn't get out for a couple of months.

Okay? So that's why I got there. That's why I was I was stuck there. Right? After a while, when the Russian soldiers got to know me because I talked to them, they said, okay. We can get you out if you want. Okay? That's when the war had moved past us. So the the city was pawned, those soldiers were there, and and they were cooperating with and they said, if you wanna get out, we're gonna get you out.

And at that point, it wasn't too bad. I said, no. I'm gonna stay. So I stayed with but the tense time was the first couple of months.

So tell me what life was like in your daily life in the first couple of months on the Russian occupation.

The tanks rolled over the bridge, and there were all Russian flags in the city center. Well, initially, what scared me was there was almost no food. Seriously. There was no medication, specifically, insulin, and the banks were closed. So I was without food, without money.

I'm I'm not a diabetic, but a friend of mine, she is diabetic. You know? So that's that was that was scary. You know? Thinking, how am I gonna get food?

You know? But it's funny. All my neighbors said, no. You don't have any food, do you? I said, no.

And and they gave and they kept giving me food, and then I found places to buy to get food under the table. Yeah.

And where was that food coming from? From from Russian occupied territories or from Ukraine, or was it never clear?

Matthew, I don't know where it was coming from.

For example, there there would be a truck parked in the out in the lot of a, supermarket that was now closed, and everybody would go there. And I've got the lower leg of a cow, and that's what I brought home to cook and and to eat. That initially, that's what I had. Right? It was like that.

Right? And, you know, I'm saying, what if this runs out? What if they just stop the food? Right? So and and I wasn't the only one.

We were all asking, you know, do you have food? They think, who's got cigarettes? That was right. That was that was it.

What was life like? I mean, you could walk around in the streets during the day?

Yeah.

Were the shops open?

Initially, everything was closed. Everything was was closed except one or two pharmacies. But then what I think is the Russian military got settled in, and they worked with local people. You know? They knew they had to bring food.

They knew they had to bring medication in. So, gradually, it eased up to the point where things were open, but the quality was not good. The Russian supermarket was maybe the worst I've ever been in. Grumpy people, old food, not much on the shelves. The best is to go to a little lady sitting on the corner with some eggs.

So at this point, these early points, was the Russian ruble imposed? Could you still spend Ukrainian money? What what was going on?

You had to you had to speak Russian, and you had to use rubles. You didn't have any rubles. I had rubles from Soviet era when a ruble was a was a ruble. Right? But that's in in New Jersey.

I, well, shortly the key thing in retrospect was when the banks opened up, and I could get my money from New Jersey through my stepson. Right? Once I once I had money. Right? And then I could get money.

He got the some US dollars for me. My stepson got the money from New Jersey, and some place he got, driven because I never had to use rubles. Some places, they refused, you know, they refused dollars. I swear to god, they refused a $100 bill for a pack of cigarettes, and they wanted rubles.

So then the banks reopened, and you could get money out of the banks.

Yes. And that was after a few weeks.

It eased up. At first I couldn't get the money out. Sasha, it was a local, you know, my lady friend's son. She she passed away. And Sasha would get get the money wire transfer from New Jersey. He would go around and get, and he he would give me either, Ukrainian Hryvnias or if I needed American dollars, he would give me some American dollars.

Right? I had 2,500 coming in a month. So I was okay. I was okay. Yeah.

So because I had Sasha. Yeah. So, a few shops started to open after the early period, and it was very mixed as it wasn't the regular shops. No.

And it was and the the quality was very poor. And they were grumpy. You know, you go to a store in London, they're very happy. They're very polite because I'm American. You know, they're always polite to us.

Here, these Russian ladies, they were just grumpy. You know?

Were these ladies brought in from Russia?

Oh, that's a good question.

Or were they were they locals who were given jobs and told you'll be working in a supermarket?

I hadn't thought about that. There's no Ukrainian ladies that grumpy, so they must have come from Russia. That's just that's just a supposition. Yeah.

But who who was running the city in terms of civilian administration? Did the Russians bring in their own police? Did they bring in the FSB?

Oh yes.

That's the that's the main Russian's State Service.

The bad guys. The bad guys were not here initially. It was just the soldiers. And I must say they what's the right word? They didn't bother with me. You know? It's you know, they wanted to go home. Right? I asked the Russian soldier, you know, what are you doing here?

And you're in Kherson. And he said, I didn't know I was in in Ukraine. I thought I was back in Russia on on maneuvers. They get here they traveling in the dark in the back of their trucks, right, from Crimea over the Antonovka Bridge. They wake up in the morning, and they're in Kherson.

Right? I swear to that. And I said, well, what do you guys plan to do? What do you wanna do? And they said, I just wanna go home.

He was, like, 22 years old or something like that. The lower the lower military guys just wanted to get out, go home. The upper guys were a little bit more hard edged. You know?

Well, so there was no government at the time.

Who was running this who was running the buses? Who was running the hospitals?

There was pandemonium. The soldiers tried directing traffic. Right? Before I was on a a corner near near Sasha's apartment. I'm there, and I'm looking at the cars without light and we didn't have traffic lights.

We didn't have traffic lights. We didn't have crossing lights or anything like that. And the people were so polite in the cars. They and they were they were, like, maneuvering themselves. It's like the Ukrainians knew: we're on our own.

We have no traffic lights. We got no administration, and and it was working okay. Then I forget whether it was a tank that showed up or a or a truckload of soldiers.

A truckload of soldiers. One big Russian important looking guy walks out. The other younger soldier is just standing around smoking. He goes to the middle of the street.

And he's trying to direct traffic and screws it all up royally. And after a couple of minutes, he goes, okay. And he just leaves. It was pandemonium.

No garbage collection. For three days, there was no garbage collection. We would occasionally lose water. We would lose electricity. We would lose Internet.

I didn't know when it was gonna happen. What else?

So the electricity, when you were still connected to the Ukrainian grid, the Russian grid, or it wasn't clear?

It was exactly physically, the wires were exactly the way before the Russians came in.

I suspect they tried to manage it. The first couple of days, first couple of weeks, screwed it up. And that this is this I'm just as you're prompting me, in in retrospect, this seems plausible that the Russian military guys didn't know how to do switch gears and backup generators and and all that stuff. And they said, okay. You Ukrainian guys, come on back in here.

You can do this. And then it and then it started going. That's plausible.

Did a lot of Ukrainians leave, immediately?

Yes.

Could you estimate how many or what percentage of the population? Kherson used to have a population of, what, 325,000 before 2022?

Closer to 400,000. 400,000. Yeah. Alright. And now we've got 20% or less.

So 80% left. There was caravans of cars get getting gas at the gas station with a lead car and just bringing them out to a lot of people. People that were prepared, like my, friend, Stefan. He who had his car packed and everything, his family in it, and, he he left, oh, very quickly, very quickly, with within twenty four hours. He was on the road going out of Kherson.

You go out, and the airport is on the left. Right next to it is the helicopter airport. Right? He's here. He's driving. His wife is over here, and and and he could see on the over there an explosion. And I said, you know, Stefan, what is that? He said, oh, that's a helicopter. Are you kidding me?

And so he got out. Like, as the bombs were falling, he got out. My, lawyer, my good friend, Sergei Dimitryk, he was out even before that.

He called me at 06:30 in the morning or I called him. He was gone that day. As soon as those bombs started hitting, he was out, had his family packed and everything.

And who was firing those bombs?

We didn't know because the Russians were coming over the bridge. And the artillery was coming in. The, the Ukrainians had had pulled back a little bit because I understand it, it pulled Nikolaev, and they were battling for the city side of the bridge.

The Russians had been coming across the bridge. They secured the left bank portion of the bridge, and it was a battle for a portion of the bridge to get into Kherson City.

So It was a battle for the Antonivka Bridge?

Yeah. Surely.

Which the Russians won.

Yeah. Because otherwise, they wouldn't have occupied the city.

What? They'd have been cut off. Why wasn't the Antonivka Bridge blown up by the Ukrainians? First thing. I don't have an answer for that now. That is a big question.

That [battle] lasted a couple of days. And and then the Russians pushed into the city, There was some Ukrainian resistance, I think 50 of them were killed in one spot in a park just fighting fighting the Russians there. But, finally, the Russians just overpowered them.

Because the the Ukrainian military had to reposition back to Mykolaiv, right, because the bridge is still there. So they pulled back to Mykolaiv, and, the Ukrainian soldiers were being transported by private Ukrainian cars from Kherson to Nikolaev because the Ukrainian military was in disarray. They should you know, they should have blown up the bridge would have held the held the city. It should it would have been hit with artillery.

And, a couple weeks later, I met a guy in Kherson who had a little Toyota.

And he drove one, two, three, four soldiers with all their gear from Kherson to Nikolaev. I said, how did you fit these guys in the car? I said, they got in. You know? They they got in.

So the Russians must have known that, you were an American. How did they react to that?

Fine. That oh, not not a problem to me.Not all of them, but there was some guy, looked like he was from Central Asia or or something like that, you know, had oriental features. And there was a group of soldiers, and I was I was talking, you know, with him through through Google Translate.

And he was he was looking at me like, are you from Mars, or are you from Jupiter? I mean, his eyes didn't blink. And I I said I said, where are you from? Tajikistan or Uzbekistan? And he still didn't he just kept looking at me.

So, I had my blue [American] passport. You're an American.

And, very often or maybe usually, I had my, good friend and attorney, Sergei Dimitryk, who's who speaks perfect English, on the phone and translating for me.

So he basically said who I am. He's Donald Flatt.

He's an American. He may have thrown in that he's under Joe Biden's protection or something like that. Right? Sergei will do that. HE won't tell me.

And I say, Sergei, why do I have such respect? Oh, you're you're the next Secretary of State under [Biden’s] campaign. So the Russian sold the Russian military were were were fine with you.

So thinks were okay, initially.

But then when the bad guys [the FSB] came in, the tone changed.

When was this?

When the dog started being mean to me, and I'm serious. I'm serious that you can tell generally by a dog that before the wall was very friendly, and then I walked past the dog, and he's, like, not he's sort of, like, growling or not friendly. I could be imagining it.

50%, I could be imagining it, but maybe I gave off fear. Maybe I exuded fear because I was afraid of the knock on the door, right, that they were rounding up people and go bringing them to bad places and doing unpleasant things to them, which is true. And in fact, I think it's underestimated in the in the news media. I think it's underestimated. So there was a lot of people being taken away in the middle of the night and being tortured or who knows what.

Because they were suspected of Ukrainian extremism or something.

They expected them to be, you know, Ukrainian resistance. But, emotionally, they want to inflict pain. That's what these guys like to do, and I've experienced this.

They want to hurt people just for the sake of partying.

So so when did the FSB, that's what you call the bad guys, Russian state security police. When did they arrive in town?

Probably about April or May. As it took them quite a while to get there.

Quite a while. Yes.

And it was obvious that they had shown up, was it?

Sasha told me the bad guys are here. Donald, be careful.

And then I could see them. You know? Like, you go to the demonstration right before the bad guys came, just the soldiers. They were using not using live ammunition. It was blanks. We all knew that.

What demonstrations were these?

In the very beginning, right, when the when the Russian military came in, it appeared spontaneous, but I think it was well organized, 100 peaceful demonstrations of a lot of people. 2,000 people, maybe.

And with a long Ukrainian flag, like, hundreds of meters long, and and they were walking down the main street. The tank was coming this way.

The the demonstrator with this long flag is coming this way. Right? And they the tank stops a a long time. Like, thirty seconds, the tank and it it goes your way. Right?

That's the military. Once the bad guys came in, live ammunition came out. Live ammunition. And and then you couldn't have any demonstrations.

Nothing. Everything shut down. Oh, yeah. So that's that was let's say the April. So March March, we were okay.

April, we're okay. May From May, it started to get quite difficult. Yeah. And that's when I still kept I still kept going out.

But I was more careful. I was more I'm I was always looking for an escape route. Right? If something if there's some altercation, you gotta see you'll have a tank and and some guy some Russians with Kalashnikovs, and I gotta go across here to to get over and get a cup of coffee, I'm thinking, should I go around?

Right? Or or when I go across, I wanna I wanna run to a place quickly where I'm not gonna get shot. So, yeah, it got nasty, and and you had to plan your routes. And you stayed inside if you really didn't have to go out then.

Then I wasn't going out chatting with these bad guys. You know? I just I I avoided them. I avoided them. Yeah.

How was it obvious who these people were? Were they were wearing black trench coats?

You can spot them. You walk in, some you know, somebody comes in here, and he's a happy grandfather.

Right? Another guy comes in. He's not smiling. Right? I look at their shoes.

Right? These you know, look at their shoes, and I don't know. Just see a demeanor. It sounds odd but I could spot them. I could spot them.

Well, maybe I only spotted 50% of them. You know? I I don't know. But, and and that's when that's when the verifiable stories of torture came back in. Because I used to hang out at this one cafe before the war and and during occupation.

We I I we we renamed it the HIMARS Cafe, you know, the American Rockets HIMARS. We because, after the liberation of Kherson and everybody knew that it was the Ukrainian military with the HIMARS. Everybody loved me because I was American. Donald, did did you work on those HIMARS? No.

I didn't. I have a I have a drawing back in Kherson that one of one of the patrons, I call him Mister HIMARS. He had pen and ink of of a HIMARS, rocket system. In the background is the Antonivka Bridge with smoke coming out of it.

I wanna get it framed at at some point. You know?

You were talking about, the the need to take great care when you were walking around the city center.

So, I was, you know so then I I was I would be at at my favorite cafe, the HIMARS Cafe, and I would hear stories about electric shocks. That was the thing that that we're most afraid of. It was getting electric shots shocked.

And I didn't ask them about this. You know? I don't know. There was a reluctance to talk to me about it. One is, you you know, I didn't wanna know anything about the recent stunts guys and where they are or anything like that.

You know? I don't know anything.

But the resistance there were Ukrainians.

Oh, yeah. Armed forces, special units or resistance units inside the city. Impromptu, I think.

I think. Because they couldn't have been planned because, you know, nobody planned for this. I don't think. There were local department got together to cause trouble. I think that's what it was.

Because I met them, you know, later, I'd be drinking with them. And, you know, I'd say, I I tried to find out who they were. I think there were local guys, working guys that lost their job, and they got together. And they said, we're gonna put some trouble with the bad guys. That's I don't know. Rush off five bombs.

So was there a curfew?

Yeah.

Imposed by the Russians?

Yeah. Dawn to dusk. So the the city was mostly closed then, but there were a few cafes open. There were a few places where you can have a beer, and there were a handful of shops where you could do some shopping for food. Yeah. And it progressively opened up more and more and more. Maybe that that was after liberation.

So a little bit, it it progressively opened enough not to the point that you'd be satisfied groceries that you put at home and what you paid for them. You know? Because everything went up in price quality went down. I couldn't I couldn't get I couldn't get these cigarettes.

These are good cigarettes. During occupations I couldn't get them. I had to get some cheap Russian ones.

So you say the Russians offered you a way out of Kherson. What way was that? What route did they suggest?

Through through Crimea, up through Russia, and then around into Western Europe. I think that was the route.

Because that was all they offered you. That Yeah. Because you couldn't drive to Mykolaiv because it was a war zone. Oh, yeah. No.

Oh, no. The battle of Chornobaivka and, near Kherson Airport. Oh, yeah. And, that's a so it was out of the question just to head right into [free] Ukraine.

And I don't think they would have allowed it, but as a practical matter, you'd be going through World War one. You know?

So they offered you a route back through Crimea, back across the Kerch Bridge and back through back through Mainland Russia into Europe as a root out of Kherson if you want it. Yes. And I believe that because an army guy was, in Kherson, and he got out that way too. And I talked to him when he got to Turkey because I think it needed the intercession of of an ambassador, a US ambassador meeting him at some point where he was exchanged by the Russian side to the Turkish side, and the American ambassador was there to witness that, accompanied him to Istanbul, and then took him back to Washington.

So whether I would have got that treatment, I don't know. I really don't know. But it would have been a long trip.

But I think it was legitimate. I could have been wrong. 85%, I think, it was legitimate. It was a real offer.

But you decide you decided to stick through it.

Yeah.

It must have been very boring, your life, for that period.

No. It wasn't. It wasn't boring. I did you know, I think you're better if you get out and and about and find out what's where are the dangerous places?

Where are the safe places? If you just stay in your apartment, right, you don't know anything. Then when you go out, you stand like you stand out like a sore thumb. As an American, we stand out like sore thumbs anyway. Right?

But I wasn't afraid, and I think I looked like I was wasn't afraid. You know? And I use a technique if there's a confrontation and there's a little bit of danger. I'll walk up to the guy that's causing the problem. And then in in, English, I'll say very authoritatively with bad words.

I won't say them now, but you what the f__k are you doing? There's children around. There's grandmothers around. Get the f__k out of here. This was at a supermarket.

And he walked out. He walked down. Him and the two the two guys behind him walked he walked down.

Now what I consciously do it it just happens.'m a scaredy cat. So if I have to think, okay. I'm gonna do this.

I won't do it. But if it just happens, you know, you I don't think anybody you know, you see a little kid run out in the street, instinctively, everybody runs out to help the little kid. It's it's instinctive.

So, did the food supply problems improve? You started to get more food?

Yes.

Yes. Definitely. The quantity improved, but the quality did not. So the It was it was a it was a big problem. I mean, realistically it remained a it remained a big problem.

You you lost weight during that period?

You're right. You're right. I I've gained the whole okay [now]!

Did you have any experience or problems with curfews imposed by the Russians?

Yes. The curfew was dawned to dusk. You had to be inside. As soon as it got dark, I was supposed to be inside.

And, usually, I was. I went inside. I went fishing with this guy, from the HIMARS Cafe, and he said, we're gonna bring you down to the energy, water park. And I knew, you know, generally where that was. It it was like, walking, it was about two hours because I had to walk back in the dark.

And I and I I didn't know exactly where I walked because I was disoriented. And but once I found a landmark that I knew, then I I had walked quite a bit around the city anyhow, so then I could find my way back. And I remember walking down under an underpass.

It was so dark. I I didn't have my, you know, cell phone or anything, and I'm I'm looking with my glasses, without my glasses because I wanted I didn't wanna trip on something. So I got out.

But I got home.

You didn't have any problems?

No. But you would meet people on the street. People were drinking, and they'd be sitting there.

And I say, you got a beer? No. But I've got some vodka. Right? We drink we drink a little bit.

You know? And they say, where are you going? I I would say, I'm going I give him a landmark near my place, and then he said, oh, okay. It's I'd say, which way? And he would say that way. Thank you, Sir. And I'd walk, and he'd stay there with his dog. I could.

They're just giving you instructions to avoid the Russian Armed Forces.

Yes. Because they could be pretty tough with people after dark, I guess. I'll get to this. Broken arms.

You broke your arm. Was this during occupation or later?

This was later. Three big guys with Kalashnikovs and two or three clips, right, with all their all their battle gear broke my broke my arm. Really broke it.

Yeah. But that's another That's another story. Okay. We we we we can spot save that to a later day. .

Because I'm well aware of a lot a lot of the problems that exist in Kherson right now. Many of which arise from Russian infiltration into the civilian and even military administrations. So the Russians haven't really just gone.

I've got names, addresses, videos, documents.

I've been to Kherson myself several times post-liberation. There's there's still a heavy Russian influence there.

Yeah.

But I'm really interested in you telling me a bit more about what what life was actually like under occupation. And, you say that the Russian soldiers, were remained reasonably friendly, but the security service agents weren’t.

Yeah. They were they they were unfriendly.

Were you ever scared of being taken away?

Or Yes. Of course I was. One, one night, I was afraid to knock on the door, the proverbial knock on the door. Right? One floor below me, exactly below my apartment, I heard the banging on the door, and I asked the next morning what happened.

They said they took this guy away. And and I said, well, what, you know, what was it with? They said, we don't know. He was our plumber or old guy, something like that. And then in retrospect, I'm thinking they were looking for me.

They got the wrong floor. Elevators weren't working. Had to walk up. They probably came to their floor. Maybe they were just untalented or made some mistake.

This took this poor guy away.

What happened to him?

I don't know. That's that's what I was afraid of. Yeah.

How much notice did you get that the Russians were going to leave? They left between ninth and eleventh November twenty twenty two, in a staged operation as the Ukrainians were pushing forward at Chornobaivka.

Yeah.

And when did it become obvious that that the thing the so the the the the situation on the ground was really changing?

I'll tell you exactly when it happened.

When I saw the video from Sasha's father-in-law of the hole in the Antonivka Bridge caused by a HIMARS, that's when I knew the Ukrainians had HIMARS. I researched it. It's, I think it's Lockheed Martin that makes it.

They're very accurate short to medium range missiles. With with extremely accurate inertial guidance mechanisms.

They're really like it's a computer flying it straight into your cup of coffee. But that's when I knew it. The Russians were were being pushed across the river.

It never dawned on me. I should have thought of it that they're gonna hit us with artillery for a year and a half or still. Well, even even now, there's there's still Russian artillery and drones striking. So, it became obvious from, yeah, the from war damage from US munitions that the Ukrainians were pushing the Russians out. And I follow, General Ben Hodges who explains in detail, the the the the the the viability of variable range HIMARS.

And I knew they were in range because they were coming in. And, my attorney and good friend, Sergei Dimitryk, who got out right away, he was in military intelligence, and he, you know, he said that he has people that are spotters for the HIMARS. And I said, I know the city is good as anybody. How come you don't let me?

He said, Donald, it's not your war. You know? But I did know that the HIMARS were in range of the bridge, and you could follow rapid move or the steady movement of the Ukrainians down the river and then from Mykolaiv. And I guess they'll make mess. The Russians decided, okay.

So the Russians decided: we’re going across to the left bank, abandoning the city, and and digging in on the other side. All just happened overnight, or or did it take a few days? From from when I first realized the effectiveness of the HIMARS till the Russians were out, I'd say, a week. That's that's how long it took me to realize that for the Ukrainians to to get in position and get ready because they were gonna storm the city. Right?

Then or they were gonna trap the Russian military in the city, I think. Right? And the Russian guy, I think, he pulled them out just in time. Just in time. Yeah.

And not, of course, a bridge on pontoons and boats and stuff like that. He was smart, that Russian guy. Because, otherwise, the Russian armed forces would have been trapped.

They would have been trapped, and there would have been a city siege with all the horrible consequences that entails. Think they would have surrendered. This this Russian general is smart. He wasn't an idiot. I think he would've surrendered.

I think he wanted to surrender. So I don't know. If I was him, knowing what he would know, right, that he would have been better off surrendering to the Ukrainians. Then going back to the Russian and saying back.

I don't know if he's still alive.

Let me ask you about Russian propaganda during the occupation. Do you see what's  there? There are a lot of photos on the Internet of Vladimir Putin's face smiling down benignly upon the people of Kherson. Was there a lot of propaganda? Did you experience it?

Did you I don't know. I'm immune to it. You know?

I know it's nonsense. The Ukrainians know it's nonsense. Yes. Of course. If you there's a certain percentage of good people in this zone, right, like my ex lady friend who passed away who believes it.

But in a good way, it it's like I don't know. She was she was born in Siberia, and she was brought up with this that if there's something wrong, Putin doesn't know about it. When he finds out about it, he'll fix it. That's her that's her mindset. That's the way she thinks.

I wouldn't talk politics with her at all at all. I just stay away. There was some percentage of the population of Kherson who believed that ultimately the Russians were there to do some good. Yes. And there was another proportion of the population of Kherson who saw the Russians as occupiers there to occupy their country.

To quantify it, I'd say maybe 10 to 20% thought the Russians were good. The rest of us knew they were bad guys.

So there were 10 to 20% Russian sympathizers, 80 to 90%, knew that they were being occupied by a malignant foreign force.

Correct. And those sympathizers are still there. The guy that does my glasses in Kherson, he's a Russian sympathizer. 100%.

How do I know that? Sasha's wife, Lena, goes around, gets all her information at the beauty parlor. Right? And I'm 80% sure she's she's right. She says he's a sympathizer and but he's still and he's still there.

I got I got these glasses, oh, three, four months ago. A nice guy. A a nice guy, but he calculated Russians are here to stay. They're not gonna be pushed out. I'm gonna stay here.

I'm making peace with people. That's because I like the guys. I wanna think of them as a family guy that's just gonna get along with everyone.

I have some friends in Kherson as well, and I've traveled in and out of Kherson with some difficulty, recently. Because the Ukrainian armed forces don't want foreigners dying there, and it is dangerous, but I've managed to go in and out myself. Within the last couple of months. So it's still possible to go, but it's it's difficult because officially, you're supposed to have a permit from the military governor of Kherson And he doesn't hand those out very easily. And even if he does, he he won't give you a permit to go into the city center. So normally, he’ll let you to come in for the day from Mykolaiv, and do work in norther Kherson oblast, helping villagers who are who who are living in deprived conditions.

I've been to Kherson city centre several times, and I am I always stay in a hotel, which I'm not going to mention, on the record, which is certainly owned by Russian sympathizers because it's the only standing building on the street. So, and, there's another there's a restaurant which is similar, and there's a cafe which is similar. Oh, okay. So, I I know that there are some, you know, Russian sympathizers who who stay there or who at least or at least they just made accommodations with whoever it is, whoever it is during the war that happens to be in charge.

Matthew, you're right. There there are the good guys and then the bad guys. The good guys, I think, are like, you know, guy with my glasses. He just has a little shop.

I knew him before. I knew him after. He treated me exactly the same. Right? Then there's the other bad guys that are still there.

But the criminals, they’re gaining in power. They are using the military vehicles that should be on the fronts. Like, there's a a a medical SUV that's designed very, very rugged so that it can withstand some artillery or mines or something like that. It's a $100,000 vehicle.

And they're getting rich. So there remains even in liberated Kherson, there remains a lot of corruption, a lot of malgovernance or no governance at all.

And, there remain there remains a lot of Russian infiltration because with all you know, when the Russians retreated, they probably left some people there. They use their usual techniques of, you you you've got family in the occupied territories or you've got family in Russia proper, and, you know, you better do what we say and provide the information we want.

Well, Sasha, my stepson, told me that after liberation, the Russians were paying teenagers to take a cell phone with a GPS signal and put it next to an electrical transformer or an electrical distribution substation. And the transformer right outside my window, 50 meters away, got hit.

And it's it's the building is about as big as this this room here. It hit right at the transformer. Now that's hard to do. First, we know where it is.

It means it gets to know where it is. And to hit that with artillery, right, over the not over the horizon, but indirect fire.

[Russian] Krasnopol artillery systems, they need a they need a point of reference in order to be accurate. Because they're laser guided, but they need to know where they're going.

Yeah. They they hit the transformer and a little ways away in front of a church, aid station. There's a long line. Maybe 40 people waiting to get food at the church. Right across the road, a little road, was a compressor station with all that yellow piping. They hit that precisely. There had to be some sort of points.

So the Russians were paying teenagers. So it's the people who were sympathetic to them for whatever reason, for money or for whatever re ever other reasons. To pinpoint strategic locations of interest.

They almost hit my HIMARS cafe. They almost hit it. They weren't aiming for the cafe. They were aiming for a pharmacy across the street, which they wind up taking out. But one of them fell short right next to the HIMARS Cafe.

I wasn't there, but my friends were inside. Luckily, there was two walls, the exterior wall and then an interior wall between them, and they were having, like, a dinner or birthday party or something when it hit. Blasted the windows out and and sent shrapnel through the through the cafe, but the wall it it was a blocked wall, I believe, that stopped the shrapnel from hitting the the party there. Now they were good. They they were yeah.

Yeah. I I won't take anything away from them technically. Morally, I just take a lot away from them.

So, the conclusion of this was that the the Russians were acting pretty barbarically during their occupation of Kherson.

In a war zone. You can't target civilians. You can't target them, and you can't put GPS points next to a pharmacy, you know, or a cafe or something like that.

I filed, I think, one of the first complaints with the International Criminal Court. As the Russians were taking control of the city near my apartment, there was five rockets that came in in rapid succession and and hit one apartment and and killed an elderly lady. I gave a couple of interviews. They they took out her body in pieces. It was covered because of the line of kids.

You see a dead body. This was like bumps. And this is a surmise. I didn't see it. I wasn't there. I saw a photograph of it, and I showed that lady was blown to pieces.

By the Russians. This is after the end of occupation.

This instance here was 02/24/2022. They came across the Antonivka Bridge. This was March 2, 10:48 in the morning when the rockets started coming in. And how do I know that? Because I I took notes.

I knew that this was something bad. I was gonna file a complaint. I took contemporaneous notes the exact time with how many rockets came in.

This this was for the battle for the city. This was in February 24 to March 2.

That's even less than a week. That was the battle for the city.

So the Russians rolled in, and then they pushed the Ukrainian forces there out of the city. And that took about a week. So there was initial there was initial week of fighting, then the Russians won that fight.

Yeah.

And then it took until November for the Ukrainians to push the Russians back out of Kherson.

Correct. And that happened very quickly, and then that took place by pontoons and everything else.

Because it became clear that the that the Ukrainians had American supplied missiles that could overwhelm the Russian Armed Forces.

And since since then, Kherson has remained troubled. TI can't go into it today, but there was the destruction by the Russians of the Nova Kakhovka Dam upstream on the Dnipro, which had devastating, consequences for Kherson Oblast. I marked the high watermark in Kherson City of the flood that came up.

And when it started going down, I know I I had an exact point on the sidewalk. Right. So so the flood of the flood affected the city as well, in fact.

And since then, Kherson City remains dangerous. It has periods of relative quiet, and then it has periods of intense shelling and drone attacks. A lot of it depends on the weather, particularly the drones because they can't fly.

Yeah.

They can't fly in bad weather. And the remains Russian infiltration and corruption in Kherson because the city remains essentially ungoverned. Would you agree with that?

Yeah. And it's getting worse.

And the Russians are just firing artillery all night and all day. And the reason why there's not more people killed is that we became very savvy. I walk in what's called what I call an artillery shadow.

I walk in artillery shadow. I keep a heavy apartment building between me and and the left bank. Right? I don't go to the big department stores unless I have to.

You know, I go to little little shops. Right? So we become more sad. I just wanted to round up really with final thoughts on, the future of the Russian occupation of Southern Ukraine.

How do you see it working out given that you've got an enormous river in the way? Neither side seems able to cross it.

We thought Donald Trump is meeting Vladimir Putin tomorrow, so we're all told ad nauseam. Matthew, you've heard it first. Donald Trump will give Alaska away to Vladimir Putin in exchange for a casino license in Moscow.

With with those thoughts, thank you very much, Donald. I appreciate your time. It's been absolutely fascinating to listen to what you have to say about, living through the Russian occupation of Kherson. You must be one of the very few, if only foreigners, who went through this experience. And thank you for your time.

No. Thank you. This has been very interesting, and you let me talk. You're very gracious and professional.

Thank you.

Thank you very much once again.