The almost 11 kilometers of Soborni Avenue that crosses Zaporizhzhia are testimony to the times that this industrial city in the southeast of Ukraine is experiencing. Leaked buildings, a ghost shopping center, hundreds of smashed windows. In this Soviet macro artery you can see the recent traces of constant Russian bombings with missiles, gliding bombs and kamikaze drones. As military experts speculate about a possible Moscow offensive on the southern front, some of the remaining residents, anxious about intensifying attacks, are preparing to leave.
Despite the blow that the Ukrainian intelligence services dealt to Russia this Tuesday with the murder in Moscow of Igor Kirillov for being responsible for the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine, the Kremlin troops advance against the Ukrainians on the battlefield —at high speed in Donetsk—, while they bomb daily throughout the country. In the Zaporizhzhia region – where the nuclear power plant taken over by Russian troops is located – in the first days of December, almost 2,000 enemy attacks were recorded, with 21 dead and fifty wounded in two bombings in the capital.
The last lethal attack, on December 10 at 3:00 p.m., fell on two medical centers and some offices less than 100 meters from the Arlex gym, owned by Artiom Kireino, who was training at that time. The shock wave exploded mirrors and windows, and further strained the spirits of this father of two girls, ages six and two.
Kireino is an example of the nervousness and stress that weighs on the dwindling inhabitants of Zaporizhzhia. As he tells it on a deserted street in the city last Sunday, he has moved three times since the start of the large-scale invasion in February 2022. When the war started, he and his family lived in the south of the city, on the ninth floor, the last one in the building. “We were scared, because of the bombings.” They immediately moved closer to the center. “We lived there until October of this year, when Russia attacked next to our house. That same day we went to another floor, on the other side [en la orilla occidental] of the Dnieper River.
The family is already looking for its fourth destination, this time in kyiv, more than 550 kilometers away. “We understand that the front line is getting closer every day. They won’t arrive in a day or a week, but I already have a plan,” explains Kireino. Two months ago he talked about it with his employees. The vast majority, 25 out of 30, would also move with the business to kyiv.
The governor of the Zaporizhia region, Ivan Fedorov, posted this weekend on his Telegram channel that since September 22, the wave of large-scale Russian attacks “has damaged more than 350 blocks of buildings and more than 1,300 homes.” “private” in several districts of the city. In the region, Kremlin troops launched 429 attacks against 19 towns last Saturday alone. Fedorov rejects the possibility of a intensification of the offensive on the southern front to take the city, as some analysts have pointed out—and others have denied—in recent months. “They have been scaring us since September,” the governor criticized this Sunday. “All this is part of psychological operations, but it is taking a toll on society,” he acknowledged in statements reported by the press.
Increased assault operations
Colonel Vladislav Voloshyn, spokesman for the southern defense forces, assures that on the southeastern front “the number of Russian assault operations grows every day,” and up to two or three dozen are recorded daily. They also “constantly” increase the number of soldiers and armored vehicles, along with drones and planes to support these assaults in the Vremiev sector, in Zaporizhzhia. “The enemy increases its efforts to try to reach the border with the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions,” he details through audio messages.
The spokesperson clarifies that this is not a large-scale offensive, “but rather assault operations with small infantry groups,” made up of between five and ten soldiers. “Your task is to achieve a gradual and gradual advance in a certain direction, gradually capture our lines and consolidate in them, and then slowly advance forward, wedged into our defense,” he continues. The same tactic, which worked well for Russia in Soledar, Bakhmut and Avdiivka, is being prepared to be implemented in sectors of Zaporizhia such as Huliaipole and Orijiv.
Taras Mijalchuk, deputy battalion commander of the Ukrainian 65th Mechanized Brigade, codenamed Spanish, recounts the attacks daily, night and day in Oríkhiv, where he is deployed. “The Russians are biting in different places and where they find a weak point, they go in with everything,” he explains while having tea in the kitchen of his barracks, about 15 kilometers from the first line, from where the sound of Russian bombings comes.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine are preparing in that sector with more weapons and soldiers, explains in Spanish Mijalchuk, who emigrated to Spain in 2005 – after a youth in which he fought in three wars – and has his family there. Fortifications are also built daily.
Orijiv, which had almost 14,000 inhabitants before the war, has become a ghost town after the Russian bombings that devastated everything. “Between 200 and 300 people are still there. They have nowhere to go and they don’t want to leave because the Government does not help the displaced,” criticizes the subcommander. There are 3.1 million internally displaced people in the country, according to data from UNHCR, the UN refugee agency. The city of Zaporizhzhia is the main destination for those who left the 67% of the territory of the region occupied by Russia and do not want to leave their home.
Mykola Kolodiazhny, co-founder of two NGOs that work with displaced women and children in Zaporizhzhia, explains that the city has experienced several waves of terror and flight of the population. The first, when the war started: “At first we were all very afraid, but then we got used to it and understood that we had to adapt.” In the fall of 2022, Russia heavily bombed the city with S-300 missiles. “People got scared again and many left,” he continues. After a few months, some of those who left returned, as had happened with those who left at the beginning of the war. In 2023 and 2024, citizens again got used to it and moved on with their lives.
“Now, in recent weeks, there have been major bombings again and people are afraid again,” he explains. The constant anti-aircraft alarms, which in other parts of the country tend to be ignored, are taken seriously here again and when they sound, they seek shelter in shelters. Several underground schools are being built in the region and there is already an operating operating room underground.
Regarding the possibility of a new offensive on the southern front, Kolodiazhny comments that the authorities assure that they do not have to worry. “But precisely when they tell us that, we worry,” he says ironically. As the intensity of the bombing increases, Kolodiazhny believes that people are preparing to leave ahead of time. “It is a psychological preparation. It is very difficult to make the decision to leave, but now we understand that we do not have to wait for the worst, as happened in Mariupol; It is better to leave early and prevent,” he says in the room where his organization operates in the Zaporizhia regional library, on the monumental Soborni Avenue.
