www.economist.com /1843/2023/01/16/the-barista-partisan-who-targeted-the-russians-in-kherson

The barista-partisan who targeted the Russians in Kherson

15-19 minutes

By Wendell Steavenson

At the end of November, Kherson was rainy and cold. The city in the south of Ukraine had been occupied by the Russian army from the earliest days of the war until it was abandoned in the face of Ukraine’s autumn offensive. The joy that followed its liberation two weeks before my visit was starting to fade. There was still no electricity, water or internet, and the Russians had begun to shell the city. Inside one of the few cafés open in the centre of town, the lights, powered by a small generator, shone dimly. A group of officers sat around a table in their bulky armoured vests, drinking coffee, which was provided free to members of the Ukrainian armed forces.

Vova, the blond-haired owner, sat down with a wan smile. “We were the resistance,” he told me. “It was here in our café.” Throughout the occupation and at great personal risk, Vova, a genial man in his 30s, had reported on Russian movements to the Ukrainian armed forces. He didn’t want me to use his real name. The Russians had left, but now he feared that some of his own countrymen would look unkindly on him – regardless of his role in the resistance – because he had kept the business going during the occupation. “Even now some people think we were feeding the invaders in this café,” he said, despite the fact that beside the bar hung a Ukrainian flag signed by soldiers. “This café is the centre of the resistance! Thank you! We are grateful for your belief in us and in Ukraine,” read one of the messages.

“We were the resistance. It was here in our café”

Like everyone I met who had lived through the occupation of Kherson, Vova’s face was hollowed-out and pale. There were purple shadows under his eyes. Incoming fire nearby rattled the windows. I could see that Vova still felt the Russians breathing down his neck.

Vova had worked hard and saved for years to buy his café, which he eventually managed to turn into a profitable business. In February last year, Sara, his girlfriend, was eight months pregnant. They planned to marry in the summer. He had just finished building a house for them when war broke out.

Vova first found out about the invasion at 6am on February 24th, when the cook at the café phoned. “We are being shot at. The war has begun. Get up,” he said. Vova and Sara considered leaving, but the bus and railway stations were mobbed, and there were long queues to buy petrol. Sara needed regular monitoring at the hospital. They decided not to risk it.

Trouble brewing Opening image: Owners who closed their businesses during Russian occupation risked seeing them seized. Local inhabitants formed a crucial part of the Ukrainian army’s intelligence network (top). The Antonivskyi bridge was of strategic importance during the fighting (above)

There was a short hiatus before Russian soldiers arrived. The police had disappeared along with the security services. Most of the shops closed; Vova boarded up his café too. Everyone was constantly on the phone to each other. A friend of Vova’s, whose place had a view of the Antonivskyi bridge across the Dnieper river, told him he could see Russians on the other side and fighter jets in the skies. Another friend, Denys (not his real name), with whom Vova played paintball, messaged to ask for information about the Russian army’s movements. Wary, Vova phoned to confirm his identity. “Yes it’s me,” said Denys. “I’m with the Ukrainian army.” Vova reported what his friend near the bridge had seen.

The atmosphere was strained during the first weeks of occupation. There were demonstrations in the main square against the occupiers, but the Russians began arresting protesters and dispersing the crowds with tear gas and rubber bullets. Some people fled into Ukrainian-controlled territory; many, afraid, stayed indoors. Vova baked bread in the café for those in need. He stayed in touch with Denys, passing on everything he had seen and heard. “I would ask him ‘How are you?’” said Vova. “And he would say ‘Why are you asking me? You are the one under occupation!’”

Vova learned how to shoot video clandestinely from his iPhone by toggling the side buttons to render the screen innocuously blank

Over the weeks, through phone calls and on messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram, Vova connected up a network of spotters throughout the region – some were hunters who owned binoculars, some kept lookout from their roofs. They reported Russian military positions and sightings of convoys to Vova on Telegram. Every day he passed on the information to Denys. “Throughout the occupation, his voice was like hope for me,” said Vova. “When he told me a shell had landed very close to him, I was very worried. He was my connection to the outside world. But I never asked where he was. I knew it was better if I didn’t know.”

The Russians installed their civil administration in a courthouse across the square from Vova’s café. Officers from the FSB, Russia’s internal security service, billeted themselves in hotels downtown. A bar around the corner, which had been closed for some time, reopened, leased to a man whom Vova knew to be a corrupt former local official. Soon this bar was full of Russians in black baseball caps wearing pistols in holsters; SUVs with tinted windows and without licence plates parked outside.

Bread line From top to bottom: Many in Kherson received humanitarian aid after it was liberated in November. Since then, access to electricity, food and water has been limited

Vova didn’t want Russians inside his café. But there was a risk, if he closed it, that carpetbagging businessmen from Crimea and Russia or local opportunists would seize it. Making up an excuse that he didn’t have enough staff, he decided to serve only take-away coffee.

Over time, Vova’s spycraft improved. He learned how to shoot video clandestinely from his iPhone by toggling the side buttons to render the screen innocuously blank. He set up a camera on the dashboard of his car and drove around the city recording videos of the houses and hotels where Russian officials lived. Once he was filming through the curtains of the café and saw a Russian soldier sitting in a car opposite staring right at him. He didn’t know if the soldier had seen his phone camera or not. “My hands were shaking,” he said.

Tatiana hammed up the role of the concerned babushka, asking all the soldiers their names, where they were from, whether they had any news

Vova tried to be careful. He bought a Russian SIM card to blend in – defiant Ukrainian patriots refused to use the Russian network – and used VPNs to disguise his identity online. “Every evening I would delete everything from my phone and then in the morning I would wake up paranoid that there was still something on it.”

Viktor, Vova’s son, was born in early April. When I asked him about how he had felt at the time, he was unable to speak for several minutes as tears rolled silently down his face. He showed me a picture on his phone: a beautiful baby boy, curling his tiny finger around Vova’s own. “I could not see any future under occupation,” he said eventually, “for me or for my child.”

Over the months, as the weather grew warmer, people lingered on the pavement outside Vova’s café with their coffee. Soon, a small group of locals began to gather regularly inside to chat. They were careful not to talk about sensitive issues or intelligence-gathering, like Russia’s planned referendum on annexing Kherson province or the locations of checkpoints. But a tacit understanding was established between them, as they felt themselves to be kindred spirits in the resistance. “We would whisper among each other,” said Vova.

Wrapped in the flag Russian forces retreated in early November (top). Pro-Ukraine posters have replaced Russian propaganda (above)

Among their number was Tatiana, a retired business owner, who lived in a ground-floor flat nearby. She kept her windows open and eavesdropped on conversations between the Russian soldiers camped outside. Tatiana hammed up the role of the concerned babushka, asking all the soldiers their names, where they were from, whether they had any news. In the afternoon she would walk her dog to the café and tell Vova all she had gleaned. “This café was important. This café was a place where we could talk. Here we could gather. We trusted each other.”

In June there was a small explosion at the Nostalgie restaurant, which was popular with the Russian occupiers. Ten minutes later some Russians, who identified themselves as military police, showed up at Vova’s café. “I knew the more nervous I looked, the more questions I would get,” he said, “So I tried to appear laid-back. I sat down with them and put my phone on the table.”

One man gave Vova his phone number and told him to call him if he needed “help”. Vova understood he was being invited to submit to a protection racket

The policemen looked at him suspiciously. They asked him repeatedly what his name was, trying to trip him up. They wanted to know whether he had applied for a Russian passport yet, which would have shown his support for Russia’s annexation plans. He replied that the queues were too long. One man gave Vova his phone number and told him to call him if he needed “help”. Vova understood he was being invited to submit to a protection racket. He demurred – he had seen how some businesses paid money to policemen, soldiers or FSB officers, only to be plundered at the end of the servicemen’s rotation.

After the Nostalgie bombing, a bar around the corner became increasingly popular with Russian officers and collaborators. They caroused with local girls, dancing on the tables and drunkenly shouting pro-occupation slogans. Vova would walk past with Viktor in his arms, scrutinising the faces inside and trying to identify them. Over time, he built up a picture of these Russians’ lives. “We knew where they lived, which cars they drove and which roads they used.”

Vova was one of thousands of ordinary people who sent locations and pictures of Russian troops to the Ukrainian armed forces. In the café I met Sergei, a schoolmate of Vova’s who had taught him years before how to take photos. He lived near the military airbase in Chornobaivka, which was repeatedly hit by Ukrainian artillery, missiles and drones. Helicopters, ammunition dumps and command posts there were so regularly destroyed that Chornobaivka became a byword for Russian obstinacy and idiocy. Sergei told me that he was responsible for five of those strikes.

Team Telegram Local citizens delivered intelligence to the Ukrainian army during the occupation (top). Chornobaivka airport, where Russia stored military equipment, was a key target for Ukrainian artillery (above)

A senior military official, who did not want to be identified because he is not authorised to talk to journalists, explained that a Ukrainian intelligence unit had set up a Telegram channel to communicate with people under occupation. The channel was registered in such a way that it was almost impossible for the Russians to block. Ukrainian military-intelligence officers then cross-checked information posted there with reports from individuals like Vova and satellite images provided by the Americans.

When the Russians cottoned on to the large network of Ukrainian informants, they began to infiltrate the Telegram group and spread disinformation. The channel ended up having over 300,000 subscribers, more than the entire population of the city of Kherson. “We would get reports that there were 1,500 troops and 200 tanks in a certain village,” said the officer. “But then we would check with our people in a neighbouring village and they hadn’t seen anything.”

Over the summer, people Vova knew began to disappear: classmates, friends, members of his paintball team

The Russian occupiers resorted to more drastic measures to stanch the flow of intelligence. Over the summer, people Vova knew began to disappear: classmates, friends, members of his paintball team. But he remained at liberty. “I tried not to hide because those who hid were suspected,” he said. Walking around with baby Viktor, he thinks, made him appear innocuous.

At the end of June, American-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) reached Ukraine. They had a range of 80km, and their impact was palpable as soon as they were put to work. “HIMARS are very loud. They made a totally different sound, very deep and heavy vibrations. The HIMARS worked like that…” Sergei told me, kissing his fingertips. The rockets obliterated barracks, tank emplacements and headquarters, and punched holes in the Antonivskyi bridge, denying the Russians an important supply route. Russian troops grew demoralised. “We heard their conversations in which they would say, ‘The Ukrainians have this new superweapon. We can’t hide from it,’” said the senior military source. “We would hear them talking about collecting hands and feet from the wreckage.”

Empty cups Few cafés remain open in Kherson (top). Since liberation, the city has suffered heavy bombardment (above)

One day in September, Denys warned Vova that he should close the café for a day. Vova suspected this meant there would be a HIMARS attack on the court building nearby that housed the city’s administration. He didn’t want to put himself in harm’s way, but worried that closing his business would draw suspicion. At around 1pm he saw people pouring out of the building, jumping into their cars and haring away. It seemed the Russians inside had been tipped off.

The Ukrainian armed forces bided their time. On September 16th Vova was sunning himself in the square; Viktor was asleep in his buggy. He noticed a large number of important-looking people gathering at the courthouse. Vova informed Denys immediately, then took Viktor to a park a few streets away. Less than 30 minutes later, he felt the HIMARS strike, very loud and close. Vova called his wife to come and pick up Viktor, then returned to the square. The junctions were cordoned off. Ambulance sirens screamed. Soldiers barked “Everyone leave!” Neighbours later told Vova they saw corpses being brought out of the building all night. The café, fortunately, escaped damage apart from a few broken light bulbs.

From the middle of October, officials in charge of the occupation began to talk publicly about evacuating to the far side of the Dnieper. Russian troops, dirty and ragged from fighting on the front line to the north, retreated into the city. Then the looting began. Russians hijacked cars, jimmied statues from their plinths and ransacked the museum.

Russian troops, dirty and ragged from fighting on the front line to the north, retreated into the city. Then the looting began

On November 9th the Russian army announced that it was pulling out of Kherson. Two days later the first Ukrainian troops entered the city. On the first day of the liberation, Denys had appeared at the door to the café. “He weighs 100kg and he was wearing armour but I picked him straight up in the air and hugged him,” Vova said. Denys sported the badge of the Ukrainian special forces. Behind him followed ten men from his unit. “They were wearing balaclavas”, said Vova, “but I recognised their eyes.” He knew them from playing paintball.

Denys continued to come in every day for coffee. “What is he doing now?” I asked Vova. The Russian army had stepped up its bombardment of the city, and the Ukrainians were trying to respond. ‘”I don’t ask him for any information,” Vova replied. “Now my mission is just to make coffee.”

Wendell Steavenson has reported on post-Soviet Georgia, the Iraq war and the Egyptian revolution. You can read her previous dispatches from the war in Ukraine for 1843 magazine, and the rest of our coverage, here

IMAGES: Finbarr O’Reilly, © Alessio Mamo / eyevine, Bernat Armangue/AP/REX/Shutterstock, Getty Images

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