Even in the green farmlands of Ukraine’s Kherson region, the threat of war is constantly hovering nearby.
Farmers harvesting watermelons in their fields recently had to run for cover, one carrying a child, when they spotted a kamikaze drone overhead.
And a farmer named Oleksandr saw some of his crops catch fire after what he believes was a strike by a drone carrying an incendiary device.
“We were driving around the field and saw a drone lying there. There’s also a crater. The watermelons were damaged,” he told Current Time. “We saw some kind of incendiary device. A yellow drone was lying there. It probably flew in and crashed.”
“Maybe all these fires we’ve seen recently aren’t accidental,” he added. “Maybe they’re from those drones.”
The Kherson region, just north of Crimea, was occupied by Russian forces in 2022. But Ukrainian troops retook territory north of the Dnieper River later that year.
Oleksandr returned as soon as he could and restarted cultivating crops on his farm. “Right after the liberation of Kherson, we came to revive watermelon farming in the region,” he said. “We were among the first to start up again so close to Kherson.”
In Ukraine, watermelons are associated with Kherson, and the region’s rich land is thought to produce the best fruit.
Farmers are now struggling to keep up with the demand from across the country for the region’s produce.
“We’re seeing a boom in Kherson watermelons. They’ve become extremely popular this year,” said Dmytro Yunusov, the director of the agriculture department in the Kherson Regional Administration.
“Farmers have already increased the area of farmland they’re using, and buyers have placed orders in advance for watermelons that haven’t even grown yet.”
Agriculture is thriving here, but residents fear that the fighting could encroach once again. Some farmers have sought out land farther from the front lines or abandoned the region altogether.
The drones buzzing over the watermelon fields are another reminder that no facet of Ukrainian life is free from the impact of the war.
