Kherson .. The city of ships on the Black Sea

Kherson is the capital of the Kherson Province in southern Ukraine, which is the main home for shipbuilding. The city was named after the ancient settlement of Khersonissos, located west of Sevastopol, one of the cities of the Crimea, which is disputed between Russia and Ukraine.

The region is of great strategic importance and position for the Russians in their war on Ukraine because it is an important port overlooking the Black Sea and the Dnipro River, but it is geographically connected to vital and important areas.

It has the "North Canal" bridge, which has been cutting off fresh water supplies to Crimea since 2014, destroyed by Russia at the beginning of the war, as Kherson controlled most of the peninsula's potable and agricultural water sources.

After Moscow declared its occupation, the "Chernobaevka" air base in Kherson turned into a stationing point for Russian forces, including planes, helicopters, tanks, and others.

Location

Kherson is located in southern Ukraine, on the west bank of the Dnieper River, 25 km from its mouth, and also north of the Crimea, which the Russians declared unilaterally annexed in 2014.

population

About 290,000 people live in Kherson, according to statistics for the year 2022.

Date

Kherson was founded in 1778 as a fortress to protect the Russian front on the Black Sea, and thousands of soldiers, workers and sailors were used for its establishment, in addition to prisoners.

The city was the first Russian naval base for building ships on the Black Sea, and was known at the time as Nikolaev Province until 1803, and Kherson Province remained one of Russia's provinces until the 1917 revolution.

During 1917 and 1920, the city suffered from many wars and was occupied by various forces, including Ukrainian, Bolshevik, French, European and Polish, which caused a decrease in its population in 1920 from 74 thousand people until it reached in 1923 to about 41 thousand.

From 1923 to 1932 the city was the capital of "Okruha" (a historical administrative division of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic).

In the Second World War (1939 - 1945), the city suffered and was subjected to great destruction and a significant decrease in the population, and it was rebuilt and its economy expanded after the end of the war, until its population rose to 158,000.

Russia's war on Ukraine

Since the beginning of the war on February 24, 2022, the Kherson region has been at the height of Russian interest, and since the end of the first week of the war has become the first region to fall completely into the hands of the Russians, as the Ukrainian authorities acknowledge.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced in March 2022 that Russia plans to organize a popular referendum in Kherson, paving the way for the declaration of its "independence" and subsequent recognition, similar to the recognition of the "Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics" in the southeastern Donbass.

"The Russian authorities plan to impose dealings in the Russian ruble, starting from the beginning of April 2022," the city's mayor, Ihor Kulekhaev, said.

Kherson has witnessed demonstrations against the "Russian occupation" from time to time since the start of the Russian war, in the absence of any demonstrations supporting it, similar to what happened in Crimea and Donbass in 2014.

According to the authorities of the capital, Kyiv, the "people's opposition" included Kherson in the list of besieged areas to subjugate the population, a list that also includes the regions and cities of Chernihiv, Sumy and Kharkiv, in addition to the Ukrainian-controlled areas of the Lugansk and Donetsk regions, including the city of Mariupol.

The Kherson Front is also among the fronts in which the Ukrainian General Staff announced "counter-liberation attacks", stressing that the battles with the Russian forces continued to rage on several axes in the region in March 2022.

At the end of July 2022, Ukrainian forces targeted bridges and a railway line across the Dnipro River in order to isolate Russian forces west of the river from supplies in occupied Crimea and in the east.

In early August 2022, Ukraine announced that it had recaptured more than 50 towns in the vicinity of Kherson that were under the control of Russian forces, with the increase in fighting in the region.

Economy

The city developed greatly during the 19th century due to the activity of its port in shipbuilding and shipping to export grain and timber to Eastern Europe, and remained a major center for shipbuilding in this 21st century.

The city included activity in other industries such as oil refining and manufacturing of cotton textiles.