By Galina Korol | 2025-11-04

In southern Ukraine, where millions once vacationed, beaches have turned into defensive lines and sanatoriums into barracks. Russian occupation has wiped out the very idea of a "resort season," replacing it with propaganda and ruin.

Occupation authorities try to project calm -- claiming "everything is going according to plan" -- but the reality is far from their glossy images.

One invasion route ran along the Arabat Spit, a narrow strip of sand linking Crimea to mainland Ukraine. The spit and nearby Henichesk fell to Russian forces in the first hours of the war.

Once packed with sunbathers and children's laughter, the coast now lies silent -- its boardwalks empty, its recreation centers abandoned, the scent of roasted corn replaced by the stillness of occupation.

Kherson's vanished season

"The Kherson Region is truly unique," Yuriy Sobolevsky, First Deputy Chairman of the Kherson Regional Council, told Kontur. "Beyond its beach recreation, it boasted a wealth of attractions."

Among them is the Oleshky Sich, Europe's only surviving administrative and military center from the era of the Zaporozhian Cossacks. The area also featured pristine nature reserves, now largely obliterated under occupation.

Russian forces have repurposed these once-civilian sites for military use, turning them into facilities, training grounds and troop deployments.

Claims by occupation authorities that "part of the Kherson region is seeing an increase in tourism" bear little resemblance to reality.

"Objectively and frankly, there was no resort season," said Sobolevsky. "Some infrastructure was destroyed because, for a time, Russian forces liked to house personnel in sanatoriums. Naturally, those sites were attacked."

He added that those seen on beaches "had nothing in common with tourists." Most were local residents, military personnel or collaborators working in the occupied area, either permanently or on rotation.

"There is practically no tourism in the Kherson region right now," Sobolevsky reiterated.

Despite the occupation administration's public promises to develop tourism, Sobolevsky called such plans unrealistic. After the war, he said, the region will still face large-scale demining.

"They leave a lot behind -- mines and unexploded ordnance," he said, noting that any resort's success depends on safety.

Zaporizhzhia's faded resorts

A similar story is unfolding in occupied resorts in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region. Berdyansk, once a main hub on the Sea of Azov, is enduring its fourth "resort season" under Russian occupation.

"Berdyansk is a city that lives by the sea," Viktor Dudukalov, deputy chairman of the Berdyansk District Council and a service member in Ukraine's armed forces, told Kontur.

Before the war, more than a million tourists visited each year, sustaining the city of 100,000 through beaches, hotels and trains from across Ukraine.

"If the city once welcomed over a million tourists, now it's at best a few thousand," Dudukalov said. He called occupation officials' claims of 200,000 visitors "numbers out of thin air."

Because of combat and Russian control over parts of southern Ukraine, Kontur's editorial staff cannot independently verify or officially confirm some claims.

According to Dudukalov, Berdyansk has become the military rear of the occupying army.

"The city effectively became one large military base. They repair vehicles, house personnel and treat the wounded here. What kind of resort can there be where troops occupy the coast?" he said.

Most resort properties are abandoned or for sale, but "nobody is buying." Prices are lower than before the war, but demand has vanished. Roads are being widened "not for tourists, but for armored vehicles," Dudukalov noted, adding that passenger service remains suspended.

"[The Russians] even staged a fake video showing a train with tourists arriving in Berdyansk," he said.

The city also faces severe shortages of water and electricity. "The water supply disruptions are unbelievable. It's easier to say when there is water at all," Dudukalov said.

Entertainment venues tell the same story: a rundown water park, a near-defunct amusement park and a closed dolphinarium -- the dolphins were taken to Odesa before the war.

"The zoo is officially open, but what's left after famine and no medicine is a big question," Dudukalov said.

"The resort season now exists only on paper," he added. "What kind of vacation can there be in a war zone, without infrastructure or people?"

Nearby Primorsk has fared no better.

"They once had grand projects," Dudukalov said. "Now no one even mentions Primorsk. It's like a house of cards -- nothing is there, and nothing will be."

He warned that if the occupation continues, the region will share the fate of Abkhazia.

A sea of oil and stolen bases

Experts say the collapse of the resort season is both an economic blow and a social disaster for residents who have relied on tourism for decades.

Denis Katyukha, head of the NGO Azov Hospitality and former owner of a hotel complex in Kyrylivka, said the 2025 tourist season has failed once again.

"[The Russians] are destroying the tourist season, the infrastructure, the sea environment," he told Kontur.

Katyukha cited a winter oil spill involving Russian tankers that polluted both the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. "Bits of fuel oil even reached us in Kyrylivka," he said.

Once a thriving resort town, Kyrylivka now operates at no more than 10% of its former capacity. Many sites are abandoned or converted for military use.

Katyukha's own Admiral Hotel was declared "abandoned property" and "nationalized" by the occupation authorities.

"A shower head has fallen off, a pipe leaks, a bed is broken," he said, describing what remains of his business.

The few visitors who arrive are mostly Russian state employees or people "forced or lured" to come.

Katyukha believes the region's revival will come only after liberation, through what he calls "solidarity tourism" -- visitors who come to help rebuild. Until then, he said, under the Russian flag, the future looks bleak.