In the Kherson Kill Zone, Six Hundred Meters Far From the Russians
By:Giorgio Provinciali
Live from Ukraine ????????
Kherson Around 3:00 PM on Wednesday, a fiber-optic-driven russian dronereachedthe northern outskirts of Kharkiv for the first time, raisingconcernsamong military radio-technology expert (and advisor to the Ukrainian Defense Minister) Serhiy Flash Beskrestnov. The regional prosecutors office for that oblastconfirmedthe news, and several media outlets picked it up, using photos and maps to explain how the quadcopter traveled 23.4 km before striking a tree and landing in the snow.
Here inKherson, that precious fiber is entirely incidental, since Russian drone operators have long been able to saturate the sky with radio-frequency drones launched from the opposite bank of the Dnipro.The distance is so short that any technological frills beyond explosives are superfluous: 600 meters.
When, at best gracias vobis some foreign delegation was taking a selfie in Kyiv to commemorate the fifth year of the war Russia has unleashed on a large scale in Ukraine the thirteenth since its invasion we were here: six hundred meters from those targeting the civilians of Kherson as human prey.
In a video reportage recorded for the YouTube channel of the Italian newspaper La Ragione, we documented how not a single building remained intact. Shot after shot, the Russian military demolished the entire historic center of the city with ruthless and obsessive precision, chasing defenseless victims right into shops and homes. The intersection of Voronchovska and Preobrajenska streets which we filmed deserted, during rush hour and in the height of summer already in 2024 is now a place so arid and inhospitable that nature has prevailed over buildings. Russian drones have targeted that too, dropping incendiary devices even on the bushes. Some buildings have been bombed five or more times, each time destroying what volunteers and civil engineers had barely restored. Already looted during the Russian occupation, the History Museum which, among the symbols of the free worlds resistance to tyranny, also displays our worn-out clothing and chevrons stubbornly resists the snipers of modern warfare: the sandbags at the windows, behind which we barricaded ourselves to film a clip when the city was liberated, stopped bullets and shrapnel, but what surrounds them is a sieve where rags and stones float with each new shot. Under the rows of trees on the edge of Ushakova vulitsia, just yesterday we noticed at least five car wrecks, a couple of them still smoking. Along that main artery of Kherson, which flows into the Dnipro, the headquarters of the regional administration from which wetooksome now historic shots is today a pile of rubble: as we documented last August, the Moscow Air Force dropped two high-tonnage KABs on it, almost completely demolishing it.
Since the war it unleashed began, the Russian Federation has fired more than 700,000 rounds of various types at Kherson. In January alone, the city was attacked approximately 500 times. Just last week, over a thousand drones rained down on our heads. More than 140 a day. Since months, those who pilot them have also been using them to litter roads, fields, and ruins withleaf mines: devices completely indistinguishable from rubble and foliage that maim and kill every hour.
Civilians are the targets, because the goal is always the same: to turn Kherson into a ghostly land incompatible with life, from which to flee, leaving the field open for the Russkij Mir.
Otherquadcopters have long been used as mines, capable of waiting for people or vehicles for weeks and then taking flight, striking them as they pass. Still others are effectivelyloitering munitions, floating indefinitely in the air hundreds of meters above the ground before plummeting in a fraction of a second at over 130 km/h into defenseless human targets.
Every flight of a swallow, every buzz, every leaf or stone becomes a source of anguish.
Wandering through the ruins of such a kill zone, gaze feverishly between heaven and earth in the deserted streets of Kherson, the chatter of people at dinner or in other convivial moments often filters through the plywood panels and wooden planks nailed to the windows of eroded buildings. This buzz is often interrupted by the cawing ofdigital vultures, vectors of a death that in Kharkiv flows along a wire and here wanders within sight.
What the Russians are using in Kherson is not psychological or tactical pressure but the systemic saturation of a permanent no-go zone.
The transformation of this city recalls that suffered by Mariupol in 2022 due to physical annihilation, by Grozny in the 1990s due to the methodical demolition of its urban fabric, and by Aleppo due to human depopulation. Except thathere, there is no total siege underway, but rather a continuous selective hunt.
In Kherson, there are no duels. Theres a chase.
Its urban space has become a predatory environment where killers who face no operational risk chase even children. In a previousvideo report, wereportedthe testimony of an 11-year-old boy who saw his best friend bleed to death while playing with him in the park. He was torn to pieces by someone who had targeted him from inside a bunker a few hundred meters away, ina human safari lacking symmetry. In this scenario,there is no reciprocity, so much so that even calling the attacker a soldier is superfluous.
What weve been describing for years now is the ontological transformation of the battlefield: cities reduced to programmed hostile ecosystems, overwhelmed by emptying.
Home, for us, here.
The ongoing blackouts severely damaged our houses heating system in Western Ukraine while we were in the Donbas.
Without electricity, the pump couldnt circulate the liquid while the fire was lit. As a result, the system caught fire, and the whole house was at risk of burning. Fortunately, it did not, but the whole system needs to be changed, and the house needs to be restored. Tubes are all bent, walls are blackened by haze, and the heating system doesnt work, requiring an entirely new system.
We are doing our best since Allas parents live there, but theres still a lot to work on here, too, as the people around us are in no better situation.
Were renewing our fundraising campaign and thanking everyone who joins us in helping us restore what Russia is destroying. Even a small donation helps. Well keep you updated on developments.
Thank you all, dear friends ????????
在赫爾鬆的殺戮地帶，距俄軍僅六百米
作者：Giorgio Provinciali
翻譯：旺財球球
烏克蘭前線報道????????
赫爾鬆周三下午大約三點，一架由光纖引導的俄製無人機首次抵達哈爾科夫北郊，這一事態引起了軍用無線電技術專家（同時也是烏克蘭國防部長顧問）謝爾希閃電別斯克雷斯特諾夫的關注。該州地區檢察院已證實此消息，數家媒體報道並配以照片與地圖，解釋該四旋翼無人機如何在擊中樹木並墜落在雪中之前飛行了23.4公裏。
（圖片來源與版權：RBK）
在赫爾鬆，這根寶貴的光纖並不重要，因為俄方無人機操作者早已能從第聶伯河對岸發射射頻無人機使天空飽和。距離如此之短，以至於除了炸藥之外任何技術花哨的東西都是多餘的：600米。
當某些外國代表團在基輔自拍以紀念俄國對烏克蘭發動大規模戰爭的第五年也是自入侵以來的第十三年時我們就在這裏：距那些以赫爾鬆平民為獵物的襲擊者六百米遠的地方。
（圖：我在寫這篇文章前不久拍了這張照片。反無人機網之上的牌子寫著歡迎來到英雄城市赫爾鬆????????版權所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
在為意大利報紙La Ragione的YouTube頻道錄製的視頻報道中，我們記錄到幾乎沒有一座建築完好無損。俄軍一次又一次無情地、偏執般準確地摧毀了這座城市的整個曆史中心，將手無寸鐵的受害者驅趕到商店和住家內。早在2024年高峰和盛夏時段我們就曾拍到的沃隆喬夫斯卡街與普裏奧布拉任斯卡街交叉口，如今已荒涼不堪，大自然已經戰勝了建築物。俄方無人機甚至連那裏也不放過，對灌木投放燃燒彈。一些建築被轟炸五次或更多，每一次都毀掉誌願者和土木工程師剛剛修複的部分。曆史博物館在俄羅斯占領期間曾被洗劫；作為自由世界抵抗暴政的象征之一，它也陳列著我們磨損的衣物與臂章頑固抵抗現代戰鬥的狙擊手：窗台上的沙袋曾在城市解放時擋住子彈和彈片，那時我們曾在其後進行拍攝，但其周遭已成篩子，每次新一輪射擊都使破布與石塊翻湧。就在烏沙科夫街邊的樹列下，昨天我們至少發現五輛車的殘骸，其中幾輛仍在冒煙。沿著通往第聶伯河的赫爾鬆主幹道，我們曾拍下具有曆史意義的地區行政總部，如今已成瓦礫堆：正如我們去年八月記錄的，莫斯科空軍向其投下了兩枚大噸位製導炸彈，幾乎將其夷為平地。
（圖：我們在2024年從哈爾科夫州行政中心報道時為Alla拍攝的一張照片版權所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
（圖：幾天前，我們在2026年2月24日從哈爾科夫州行政中心報道時為Alla拍攝的一張照片版權所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
自這場戰爭爆發以來，俄聯邦向赫爾鬆發射了超過70萬發各類彈藥。僅今年一月，該市就遭受約500次襲擊。就在上周，超過一千架無人機向我們頭頂傾瀉。每天超過140架。數月來，操控者還利用無人機在道路、田野與廢墟中散布葉雷（葉狀地雷）：這些裝置與瓦礫與樹葉完全難以區分，整日整夜致殘並奪命。
平民成為目標，因為（敵方）目的始終如一：把赫爾鬆變成一個不宜居住的鬼城，迫使人們逃離，從而為俄羅斯世界騰出空間。
其他四旋翼無人機長久以來也被作為地雷使用，能夠等待人或車輛數周，隨後起飛，在目標經過時襲擊。還有些無人機實際上是滯空彈藥，它們在地麵數百米高空長期徘徊，然後在一瞬間以超過130公裏/小時的速度墜落，襲擊毫無防備的人類目標。
每一次燕子般的掠過、每一次嗡嗡聲、每一片落葉或石子都成為恐懼的源頭。
（圖：我與Alla在赫爾鬆市中心拍攝報道時緊張地凝視天空版權所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
徘徊在這片殺戮地帶的廢墟中，在赫爾鬆荒蕪的街巷裏，我的目光在天地之間瘋狂掃視，人們晚餐或社交時的低語常常穿過釘在風化建築窗戶上的夾板與木板傳來。這種嗡嗡聲常被數字禿鷹（無人機）的嗚鳴打斷，那是死亡的載體：在哈爾科夫，死亡沿著一根線流動；在這裏，死亡就在眼前遊蕩。
（地圖來源：Maptiler）
俄軍在赫爾鬆采用的不是心理或戰術壓力，而是係統性地把這裏變成永久的禁區。
這座城市的變形讓人想起2022年馬裏烏波爾因實體毀滅所遭受的折磨、上世紀90年代格羅茲尼因有計劃地拆除城市結構所遭受的破壞，以及阿勒頗因人口外流而發生的衰落。但不同的是，這裏並非全麵圍城，而是持續的有選擇性的獵殺。
在赫爾鬆，沒有對決，隻有追捕。
其城市空間已成為一個圍獵場，凶手們沒有任何作戰風險，甚至追逐兒童。在之前的視頻報道中，我們記錄了一名11歲男孩的證詞：他在公園與朋友玩耍時目睹好友流血而死。那孩子被一個從幾百米外的掩體中瞄準他的人撕裂，像一場不對等的人類狩獵。在這種情形中，不存在對打，甚至稱攻擊者為士兵都是多餘的。
這些年來我們一直在描述的，是戰場的本體論性轉變：城市被降格為程序化的敵對生態係統，被清空吞噬。
家，對我們來說，在這裏。
（圖：我在撰寫本文前不久在烏克蘭赫爾鬆拍了這張照片????????版權所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
***
持續的停電嚴重損壞了我們在烏克蘭西部的家中的供暖係統，而我們當時就在頓巴斯。
沒有電，點著的爐火無法通過水泵循環熱水。結果，係統起火，整個房子麵臨著燒毀的風險。幸而未被燒毀，但整個係統需要更換，房子也需要修複。管道都是歪的，牆壁被煙霧熏黑，供暖係統無法正常工作，需要徹底更換。
我們正在盡最大努力，因為Alla的父母住在那裏，但這裏還有許多工作要做，周圍的人處境也好不到哪兒去。
我們正在重啟籌款活動，感謝每一位支持我們修複被俄羅斯摧毀一切的朋友。即使是小額捐款也有幫助。我們會及時更新進展。
感謝大家，朋友們。
????????如果你相信我們的工作，請支持我們????????????
在過去的三年裏，我們一直在烏克蘭戰爭的各個前線進行報道
https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/9mFvpzKUrU
