Deprivation and resilience in Volodymyr Zelenskyy's hometown

Russia's war may have left them poor and facing the risk of floods after an attack on a nearby dam, but residents of Kryvyi Rih remain as defiant as the city's most famous son, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

"How much for this (piece of meat)?", an elderly lady with tousled hair asked Alvina Gukasyan, a trader at the city's main covered market.

"It's 150 hryvnias (four euros) but I give it to you for 130 (3.5 euros)," said Gukasyan.

"Sorry, I still can't afford it," the shopper timidly apologised.

More than six months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the economy of Kryvyi Rih, an industrial city in the south of Ukraine, has gradually collapsed.

Unemployment has skyrocketed as the six heavy industrial complexes forming the city's core have ground to a near halt.

Before the war, they provided work directly or indirectly to some 300,000 people in a city with a population of 620,000, according to the municipality.

But now two-thirds of the workforce are unemployed and inflation is eating up the little money they have.

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"People have run out of money," said the market trader Gukasyan.

"Now grandmothers and grandfathers only come here to buy bones to boil in their soup," she lamented.

The ranks of the poor in Kryvyi Rih have also been swelled by 75,000 refugees from the neighbouring region of Kherson, under Russian occupation since early in the war.

To help, the city has handed out 150,000 bags of basic necessities like cooking oil, cereals and canned food, local official Olena Tereshchenko told AFP.

And though some receiving the aid are "depressed", many "still have faith in their army" and in final victory, she added.

"Compared to Mariupol we have no reason to complain," said Olena Shevchenko, a 50-year-old resident, referring to the southeastern city which fell to Russian forces in the spring.

"Mentally, it's hard, but we're hanging on," she said while collecting a bag of food aid for a neighbour.

Her words echo daily calls for resilience by Zelenskyy, whose leadership is praised in Kryvyi Rih.

Read | Russia's mobilisation was 'predictable', shows war effort failing, Ukraine says

"He gives us hope. We believe in him," said Shevchenko.

But the local security situation has deteriorated in recent weeks.

While the Ukrainian army mounted a counter-offensive further south towards Kherson, Russian missiles rained down on Kryvyi Rih.

Then on September 14, a Russian airstrike blew up the dam, flooding around 100 homes.

At the State University of Economics and Technology, where Zelenskyy studied, furniture from lower floors has been moved higher up for fear of flood damage.

"Life hangs by a thread," said university rector Andriy Shaikan, who once attended classes with the president, in the building's basement while taking cover during an air raid alert.

Shaikan said he is "proud" that the president, a comedian until his election in 2019, was "born and raised" in Kryvyi Rih.

"He plays a historic role because he proved to the whole world that we stand up for our values," he said.

In the town's synagogue, which the Zelenskyys were said to have sometimes attended, Rabbi Liron Ehderi said that "providence sent him to the people".

For Deputy Mayor Sergiy Miliutin the 44-year-old president is an "allegory of Ukrainians".

"Strong, energetic, loves their country and are ready to do anything to protect and liberate it," he said.