Prices have increased at least 3 times

Residents of Kherson, southern Ukraine, suffer from isolation and inflation

Kherson residents protesting against the Russian attack.

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The new life of the residents of Kherson, cut off from the world, is summed up in waiting for information about relatives who have not been informed and facing a sharp rise in consumer prices in their city in southern Ukraine, which was controlled by the Russians since the first days of the war.

But among the many testimonies provided by city residents to AFP, it was not possible to verify an independent source and were included in this investigation.

Alyona Lapchuk, 54, was informed of the death of her husband, Vitaly, after a weeks-long search.

His body was found in a river.

While working in Kyiv, he decided to join the Kherson defense units at the beginning of the Russian war.

He was lost on March 27, three weeks after the Russians took control of this city, which had a pre-war population of 300,000.

"I tried to call him several times," Lapchuk told AFP by phone.

The phone was ringing in a vacuum.

One day someone cut off my contact completely.”

"That's when I realized there was a problem," she said.

On the same day, three cars stopped in front of her house at one o'clock in the morning, with the letter "Z" written on its side, and her husband came out with blood covering his face and hardly recognizable.

Inside the house, the Russian military took phones and computers and her husband reassured her that they promised "not to harm his family."

This was the last time Alyona saw her husband alive.

"They covered our heads, me, my husband and my oldest son, who is 34 years old, with bags," she said, sadly echoing, "I will never forget Vitaly's look at that moment.

That was the last time our eyes met.”

The three family members were questioned.

Alyona says she was then thrown under a bridge with her son.

More than two months later, on the ninth of June, she was told that fishermen had found Vitaly's body in a river with his legs bound and tied to a stone.

Monitor everywhere

Tatiana, a Kherson resident who agreed to speak to AFP, without giving her last name, used a VPN to avoid Russian surveillance, confirmed that the FSB and the Russian National Guard were active. in the city.

"They can arrive and take anyone by bus without any explanation," she said.

She added, "Some return and others disappear," stressing that "there are control points everywhere.

They check IDs, phones, and bags.”

During a trip to the city organized by Moscow for journalists this month, an AFP journalist said he saw a few Russian soldiers in the city center, but saw a large number of checkpoints around.

Unlike other Russian-held cities such as Berdyansk, few Russian flags fly on the city's buildings, according to an AFP journalist.

Tatiana asserts that the city's residents painted Ukrainian flags in the streets, and hung blue and yellow ribbons, the colors of the national flag, on trees as a sign of protest.

"It is very difficult for the Russians to prevent all of this, because it is coming back," she said.

She noted that Moscow's forces are trying to impose the use of the Russian ruble in Kherson, but that residents "obstinately pay the hryvnia" of the Ukrainian currency.

No help, no work

Another result mentioned by Kherson residents is the hyperinflation since last March.

In Skadovsk, 80 km south of Kherson on the Black Sea, a woman, who asked not to be named, told AFP that prices had "rose at least three times".

"Everything is expensive except for bread and some vegetables, and dairy products are hard to come by," she added.

Medicines became available again in the region, although it was difficult to obtain them after the shortage at the beginning of the war.

"No help (from the Russians), no work," she said sadly.

Some residents, including Alyona, are hoping that the Ukrainian army will liberate Kherson, after it was pushed north a few dozen kilometers away.

Her husband Vitaly was buried on June 11 in the absence of his family, who fled Kherson.

'When Kherson is liberated,' said Alyona, 'I will return and set up a seat (by his grave), and I can speak to him again.'

Residents of the city painted Ukrainian flags in the streets, and hung blue and yellow ribbons, the colors of the national flag, on trees as a sign of protest.

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