A brief ceasefire opens a perilous escape window from Kherson’s riverside kill zone

KOZATSKE, Ukraine -- A white towel on her gate and a white rag in her hand were Ukrainian Nataliia Diadiuk’s only ways to tell Russian drone operators she is a civilian. When a brief ceasefire kicked in on Oct. 27, she had a moment of respite. The 53-year-old is one of a handful of residents left in Kozatske, a riverside village located in the kill zone of Ukraine’s Kherson region less than 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from a Russian-controlled area.“I really want silence,” Diadiuk said, fighting back tears as she stood on an empty street lined with abandoned houses. “And I want to see the people who left, all of them. People left for both sides."Diadiuk’s life has been reduced to basic survival: rainwater to drink, firewood gathered around town for heat, a radio she tries to tune in to for news, and the remnants of humanitarian aid that had not reached her in two years until the brief ceasefire that ended Sunday night just days after it began. Going out means dodging every kind of weapon, including mines scattered everywhere. The neighbors she mentions are more often the dead than the few still living nearby.A team from The Associated Press gained rare access to a so-called red zone t...