Inside liberated Kherson: Joy gives way to anxiety and hunger

Kherson is Ukraine’s hero city: a symbol of the country’s ability to put on a fight. But now it is a shadow of its former self.

It took just a few hours for the joy and relief of the "liberation" to give way to the angst and hunger that now inhabit most of its residents.

Since Russian troops retreated east of the Dnipro River the city has become something of a frontline.

Residents say they are experiencing unprecedented random shelling. When Ukrainian troops were trying to retake the city, they say, they only hit military targets.

Critical infrastructure is constantly under attack and most of the residents have no electricity, heating or running water.

Olena Averina was born and raised in Kherson and decided to stay through Russia’s occupation with her daughter Nastya.

"I stayed because my mother and my father are ill," she says. "So I had no other option. Also because I had no money to leave. And we were born here. We didn’t want to leave everything that way. Who will help if not us? In our building, only me and Nastya are left. The others are elderly: pensioners, disabled. How can we leave them?”

The elderly and the sick have been left in a particularly difficult situation. Many no longer find the help they need in Kherson.

Vodnikova hospital used to be one of Kherson’s main medical facilities. Most of the staff have gone and patients have been offered medical evacuation for security reasons.

But it's impossible for many.

"I am alone," says a patient with back trauma. "I don’t know how to live outside of my hometown."

Doctor Vitalina Chebotareva shows us around her department. There is no electricity for the monitors in the intensive therapy unit.

"We have a curfew, and shelling, so people are not calling the ambulances any