A Ukrainian mayor, released from captivity, returns to a radically different city

0:00Support for this podcast comes from Northwestern University's Online Master's in Public Policy and Administration, preparing graduates to drive meaningful change at the local, national, and international levels. Learn more at sps.northwestern.edu. Today on State of the World, a Ukrainian mayor released from captivity returns to a radically different city. You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. I'm Greg Dixon. Ukraine has been a country living through war for more than four years since Russia's full-scale invasion.

0:41But the experience of that war varies widely. Cities on the front line often bear the brunt of attacks, and yet residents are forced to persevere. On yesterday's episode, NPR's Ukraine correspondent Joanna Kakissis brought us the story of how life in the city of Kherson has changed over the years of war as drone attacks evolved. You can find that in our feed. Today, Joanna brings us the story of someone from Kherson who missed all those changes. Hey, Joanna. Hey. Tell us about what you have today. So it's a story about a guy who used to be the mayor of Kherson. And as the Russians tried to take over Kherson back at the beginning of 2022, he was one of many people in Kherson who grabbed traditional weapons like a rifle.

1:24And they tried really hard to keep out Russians who were coming in with rifles and with tanks, all traditional weapons, right? And then he missed it all. He disappeared. And you'll find out why. But in the years that he was gone, his city changed dramatically. And not only did his city change, it wasn't a transformation just in his city and how his city was living, but it was a transformation in modern warfare. All right, let's take a listen. When the Russians took over Kherson four years ago, they patrolled the streets looking for locals resisting the occupation. That's how the city's former mayor, Volodymyr Mikhailenko, ended up in the trunk of a car with a sack over his head.

2:07He was supposed to meet someone. When I arrived at the meeting point, a car drove up at a high speed, and a Russian soldier jumped out. He grabbed me, turned my face to the car, and asked, Is that him? He ended up in a basement jail with others he knew. It was a week before Easter. They beat me practically every day. They did not beat me on Easter Sunday, but instead they beat me twice on Good Friday. They even broke my ribs. He was soon moved to other prisons and ended up in Russia. His fellow POWs included a sunflower farmer and a handyman snatched from the forest while gathering firewood, as well as captured Ukrainian soldiers.

2:55They brought a guy on crutches. He had no legs. Other guys were also severely wounded. Some were even losing their minds. He and the other POWs ate potato peelings and cups of murky soup. I remember once, I counted seven grains of barley in my soup. And all the other guys were jealous. They said, you're so lucky. Mikolajenko dug up wild nettles growing in the cracks of the prison courtyard. We divided the leaves among us, sharing two, maybe three leaves each, so we could at least have some vitamins. They also shared stories about their families. Mikolajenko talked a lot about his elderly mother.

3:40He wondered if she was still alive. And if she was, he thought, does she think I'm dead? He often wondered if he would die here. Long interrogations by Russian soldiers often came with more beatings. He says his interrogators told him they were fighting to restore the Soviet Union. And they believed they were fighting not with Ukraine, but with the whole world, that the whole world was against them. He often pressed them for news about his hometown. And in spring of 2023, an interrogator let it slip out that Ukraine had regained control of Kherson. own. And this made me feel less trapped. This gave me hope that Ukraine would soon be free.

4:25And this madness, started by the Russians, would end. Two more years passed before Mikhailenko's own ordeal would end. On August 20th of last year, he was moved to a new cell, where, rumor had it, prisoners went before being released. Well, that's what we guessed, because we saw people go in and then disappear. We called it the portal. Three days after entering the portal, he and other POWs were loaded into a van and driven to an airfield.

4:58They arrived back home on August 24th, Ukraine's Independence Day. TV crews filmed their return.

5:11Mikhailenko had lost more than 50 pounds in captivity. His head was shaved, his face was pale and gone. But he was smiling. He wrapped himself in the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag. A Ukrainian journalist recorded Mikhailenko's message to his hometown. Congratulations to your son and happy holidays, my dear. Happy Independence Day. Ukrainian authorities gave him a cell phone so he could call his wife and daughters, who told him his elderly mother was alive. But there was bad news about the hometown he had not seen since April 2022. They told me that Kherson is almost destroyed, and every day the Russians are using drones to hunt down civilians.

5:58For the next few weeks, Mikhailenko recovered in a hospital in Kiev. And then, last fall, doctors gave him the all-clear to go home. On the bus ride to Kherson, he passed highways covered in tunnels of nets put up to protect the city from drones, something he had not even imagined during his three and a half years in a Russian prison. I mean, I remember defending my city with a rifle. And now there are killer robots that fly. Joanna, I just want to come out of the piece here for a minute. He's been through this huge ordeal of three and a half years in captivity. And Kherson has changed a lot while he's been gone.

6:41Remind us from yesterday the changes it's gone through. So this is a city that endured an occupation, pushed out the Russians. Then the Russians were just on the other side of the river and started to hit them with rockets, with mortars, with artillery. And then in 2024, the Russians started to use drones. And not just the shot head drones that are familiar around cities, the longer range drones, but they started to use these just regular little FPV drones. They equipped them with grenades and Russian pilots, drone pilots from across the river, would navigate them and chase civilians, chase civilians in cars, on bikes, on foot.

7:18And this transformed day-to-day life there because in Kherson, it's hard to walk around without thinking about a drone possibly tailing you. Yeah, just a transformation of life. And I'm sure the city looked completely different for him as well. Yeah, I mean, the city's population shrunk significantly, went from 300 ,000 to just 60 ,000. And as he was driving into the city, he just kept seeing, you know, street after street of destroyed buildings, what to him seemed like hundreds of destroyed buildings. All right, let's go back to listening to his experience. The pain was immense. I had not fully recovered from my captivity.

7:58And to see this horror, It was so very difficult. A United Nations study says short-range Russian drones have killed at least 200 civilians and injured 2 ,000 more in Kherson and surrounding areas since 2024. The UN calls these attacks war crimes. Mikhailenko says he will stay in Kherson with his family and grandchildren and help it heal. He strolls through his neighborhood and sees signs of life. Oh, I think there are more people outside, maybe because it's getting warmer. Or maybe, he says, it's just him, the optimist. Because Russian troops continue to hunt civilians here using short-range drones.

8:46Mikhailenko compares it to living in a jungle, hunted by wild animals. Every day is a challenge. Will you stay alive or not? His daughter gave him a portable drone detector for protection, but sometimes he forgets about what he calls the flying killer robots. Like one day a few weeks ago, when he was shoveling snow on the sidewalk just outside his house. And then two police officers passed by. They yelled, hey man, hurry up and take cover. Can't you hear? There is a drone flying over you. And I look up and I see it circling over my head. He walked inside and watched the killer robot fly away. Then he went back outside and finished shoveling.

9:31That was NPR's Joanna Kikisis. Joanna, thank you so much for your reporting from here, Son. You're welcome, Greg.

9:41That's The State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening. This is Ira Glass. On This American Life, we tell stories about when things change. Like for this guy David, whose entire life took a sharp, unexpected, and very unpleasant turn. And it did take me a while to realize that it's basically because the monkey pressed the button. That's right. Because the monkey pressed the button. Surprising stories every week, wherever you get your podcasts.