Galyna Lutsenko, a crisis psychologist, is moving busily among a small group of children seated around a table in a basement in Kherson, unique in being Ukraine’s only leading city almost directly on the frontline with Russian forces – and one where people live with the daily threat of attack.

She dangles a plasticine butterfly on a thread over a playhouse on the table. Her own house in the city, she says, was hit by Russian shelling in 2024, injuring her in the leg and stomach.

This basement is a safe space in a dangerous city. Used as a shelter by local people, other rooms in the complex are hosting yoga, a dance rehearsal and a craft session for a group of older women screen-printing T-shirts bearing the city’s name.

The streets above ground explain this subterranean activity. Supermarket and shop windows in this city on the right bank of the Dnipro River are boarded against shrapnel, while other buildings show damage caused by artillery and glide bombs.

Long stretches of the city’s streets are being draped in anti-drone nets, including the main approach from the coast – a 20-minute drive away – that is now a net tunnel on three sides.

With Russian forces just across the river, daily life is lived under cover for the 60,000 residents – including 5,000 children – who remain, out of its original 300,000 inhabitants.

MBFC
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