War in Ukraine: fishing at the front

Olha Epifanova leans over the railing and looks across to the other bank. “It’s a weird feeling knowing they’re over there somewhere,” she says. By that she means the Russians, who control the area on the other side of the Dnipro River. A few meters from Olha, her husband Genadij Wowk is holding his fishing rod in the water. The two pensioners are standing on the bridge to a small island in the south of Cherson in the middle of the Dnieper. Ever since the Russian army withdrew from the right bank, the river has formed the natural barrier between defenders and occupiers. Genadij’s hook with the little yellow bait that looks like a kernel of corn is floating somewhere in the front line right now.

Hardly a fish bites today. Again and again Genadij catches up with his hook. The bait is gone, but no fish are hanging from it. And if he pulls one out, then only a very small one. “For the cats,” says Genadij. But for both of them, the pastime is more important than the big catch anyway. During the nine-month occupation, they went fishing here almost every day. Because when fishing you are outside in the fresh air and not at home with your thoughts locked up. The couple’s children left Cherson early, leaving only Olha and Genadij with their dog and cats.

Shell casings in the dirt

While Genadij casts his line again, Olha dares a walk to the island in the middle of the river. There is a tiny zoo there. The animals that are still there have apparently not been fed for days. As Olha approaches the gate, the goats jump around behind the fence like mad. Many other enclosures are empty.

The Russians abducted the animals before retreating to Crimea. Shortly after the withdrawal, videos of the animal theft circulated in the Ukrainian media. One shows the owner of a safari park in Crimea lifting a raccoon by its tail and tossing it into a carrier. In addition, the Russians probably took wolves, a llama and a donkey with them. However, they left the hungry goats behind. Olha has nothing to eat to give them.

The beach on the shore is also deserted. Behind a few boarded-up booths there is a crater in the ground, some branches have broken off. Something hit here recently. A few Ukrainian soldiers stroll through the otherwise deserted park behind the beach. They have yellow tape around their arms and their assault rifles slung over their shoulders. They don’t even look at the river.

Just a few kilometers upstream are the remains of the bridge that was crucial to the fate of Cherson. The area around the Antonivka Bridge is considered dangerous, the embankment is deserted. The window panes of many houses here have been shattered, and a burned-out tanker truck is parked at the side of the road. Bullet casings and Russian army trousers lie in the dirt next to the bridge. A gigantic piece of the bridge has been missing since it was blown up by the withdrawing Russian troops. The temporary pontoon bridge next to it was also destroyed.

To this day, many Ukrainians wonder why the bridge wasn’t blown up at the beginning of the war. This could have prevented the Russian army advancing from the south from crossing the broad river. In the area there is only one other crossing over the Dnipro, kilometers upstream, the bridge at the Nova Kakhovka dam. After the capture of Cherson, these two bridges were the main supply routes for the Russian army. The Ukrainians repeatedly fired at the structures with multiple rocket launchers of the HIMARS type, rendering them largely unusable.