Daniel Brown
KHERSON, Ukraine—Soon after Ukrainian forces kicked Russian forces out of Kherson, city resident Kostyantyn Babenko, 49, received a WhatsApp message from one of his old friends in the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) asking him for a favor. Communications like these were no small thing—by now, Babenko’s hometown had been under occupation by Russian forces for nearly seven months.
Due to the risky nature of their relationship, Babenko’s friend only sent him a short, secretive message stating the name of a building in Kherson city. Babenko immediately knew what to do.
That day in September, he “went to the building, [watched] who was there, who was coming, who was going, what cars were coming, what cars were going, [and] wrote down for myself the license plate numbers of all the cars,” he told The Daily Beast. “In this way two days passed.”