“The fifth is ambition. It next will be right
To describe each particular batch:
Distinguishing those that have feathers, and bite,
From those that have whiskers, and scratch.
“For, although common Snarks do no manner of harm,
Yet, I feel it my duty to say,
Some are Boojums—” The Bellman broke off in alarm,
For the Baker had fainted away.
He was driving his bus.
On Route 14.
In the southern ‘elves’ city.
Of Kherson earlier this month.
The bus was full.
The bus was full.
And people were standing.
In the aisle.
When it reached.
An intersection.
And it was hit.
By an ‘orcs’ drone.
The Bellman himself they all praised to the skies—
Such a carriage, such ease and such grace!
Such solemnity, too! One could see he was wise,
The moment one looked in his face!
“All the windows.
Got smashed.
I barely made it.
To the next stop.”
“I barely made it.
To the next stop.
Where there was a shelter.”
Where there was a shelter.”
“I looked in the mirror.
And saw blood.
I thought – oh, I need.
To get to the shelter.”
“To get to the shelter.
Quickly because sometimes.
They send a second.
Drone immediately.”
He had bought a large map representing the sea,
Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
A map they could all understand.
He was in shock.
After the attack.
And at least eight of.
His passengers were injured.
“It’s no fun.
Working here.”
“It’s no fun.
Working here.”
“This happens.
Almost every day.
They’ve started.
Hunting buses down.
“You go to work and.
You have no idea.
If you are going.
To come home.”
“What’s the good of Mercator’s North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?”
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply
“They are merely conventional signs!
Kherson’s municipal.
Transport company.
Where he works, says.
The attacks started last year.
And are getting worse.
Public transport has become.
A priority target.
For ‘orcs’ drone operators.
“Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
But we’ve got our brave Captain to thank
(So the crew would protest) “that he’s bought us the best—
A perfect and absolute blank!”
This year alone,
Three of its workers.
Have been killed.
Eight wounded.
And 21 of.
And 21 of.
Its trolleybuses and.
Eight buses damaged.
Local authorities say.
Six privately operated.
Buses have been hit.
In 2026, too.
This was charming, no doubt; but they shortly found out
That the Captain they trusted so well
Had only one notion for crossing the ocean,
And that was to tingle his bell.
About 65,000 people.
Are still thought to.
Be in Kherson.
Be in Kherson.
A city of some.
300,000 residents.
Before the war.
Before the war.
He was thoughtful and grave—but the orders he gave
Were enough to bewilder a crew.
When he cried “Steer to starboard, but keep her head larboard!”
What on earth was the helmsman to do?
The city is firmly.
Under ‘elves’ control.
And yet it is.
The administrative centre.
Of one of the five.
‘Elves’ regions which.
‘Mordor’ claims.
As its own.
Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes:
A thing, as the Bellman remarked,
That frequently happens in tropical climes,
When a vessel is, so to speak, “snarked.”
It was occupied.
By the ‘orcs’.
In the first few days.
In the first few days.
Of the full-scale invasion.
Of 2022.
Then retaken by the ‘elves’.
In autumn of the same year.
And since then has been.
Relentlessly attacked.
By ‘orcs’ forces from.
Across the Dnipro river.
But the principal failing occurred in the sailing,
And the Bellman, perplexed and distressed,
Said he had hoped, at least, when the wind blew due East,
That the ship would not travel due West!
A woman, a manager.
At the Kherson municipal.
Transport company.
Believes the threat.
Believes the threat.
From ‘orcs’ drones.
Is getting worse.
Particularly since.
They started using.
Optic fibre cables.
Which are immune.
To jamming.
But the danger was past—they had landed at last,
With their boxes, portmanteaus, and bags:
Yet at first sight the crew were not pleased with the view,
Which consisted of chasms and crags.
“Some are just.
Hovering, waiting.
Others are scout drones.
They look the driver.”
“Right in the eye.
Through the windscreen.”
“Right in the eye.
Through the windscreen.”
“There is a bus driver.
Who had a bomb dropped.
Literally on to his head.
On 11 April.”
“It went through.
The cabin’s roof and.
Fell on his head.”
Fell on his head.”
The Bellman perceived that their spirits were low,
And repeated in musical tone
Some jokes he had kept for a season of woe—
But the crew would do nothing but groan.
Authorities in Kherson.
Have taken steps.
To protect bus drivers.
And their passengers.
Some of the busiest streets.
Are covered with.
Anti-drone nets protecting.
Pedestrians and traffic underneath.
And authorities say.
Drivers are given.
Helmets and.
Bullet-proof vests.
He served out some grog with a liberal hand,
And bade them sit down on the beach:
And they could not but own that their Captain looked grand,
As he stood and delivered his speech.
They were also issued.
With drone detectors.
Called chuyka.
But they are of limited use.
They only detect.
Approaching drones.
Which use known frequencies.
For navigation.
But machines relying on.
Fibre optic cables.
Or new frequencies are.
Invisible to them.
“Friends, Romans, and countrymen, lend me your ears!”
(They were all of them fond of quotations:
So they drank to his health, and they gave him three cheers,
While he served out additional rations).
The municipal transport company.
Currently has.
About 30 buses.
“I can’t say.”
“I can’t say.
Each one of them.
Will meet a drone.
Every day,” said the manager.
“But the drone detector.
Will beep once.
In an hour or.
An hour and a half.”
“All it tells you is that.
There’s a drone around.
It will show your distance to it.
In metres or kilometres.”
“We have sailed many months, we have sailed many weeks,
(Four weeks to the month you may mark),
But never as yet (’tis your Captain who speaks)
Have we caught the least glimpse of a Snark!
If the chuyka goes off.
Bus drivers are supposed.
To stop.
To stop.
Let their passengers out.
And direct them.
To the nearest shelter.
To the nearest shelter.
“We have sailed many weeks, we have sailed many days,
(Seven days to the week I allow),
But a Snark, on the which we might lovingly gaze,
We have never beheld till now!
Even getting to work.
Can be lethal.
Another bus driver was.
Being taken to work.
Together with colleagues.
In a company van.
On 3 May when.
It was targeted.
“Come, listen, my men, while I tell you again
The five unmistakable marks
By which you may know, wheresoever you go,
The warranted genuine Snarks.
“They hit us.
We got out.
And when an ambulance.
Arrived to help us.”
“And when an ambulance.
Arrived to help us.
They hit the ambulance.”
They hit the ambulance.”
Deliberately targeting.
Medical workers is.
A war crime.
Under international law.
“Let us take them in order. The first is the taste,
Which is meagre and hollow, but crisp:
Like a coat that is rather too tight in the waist,
With a flavour of Will-o’-the-wisp.
“What they do.
Is hit you.
And then they.
Hit you again.”
“They’ve turned people’s lives.
Into a horror show.”
“They’ve turned people’s lives.
Into a horror show.”
He was concussed.
But one of his colleagues.
An engineer.
Was killed.
But why do bus drivers?
In Kherson?
Keep going back to work?
Despite the severe danger?
“Its habit of getting up late you’ll agree
That it carries too far, when I say
That it frequently breakfasts at five-o’clock tea,
And dines on the following day.
“We need to get people.
To their pharmacies.
And hospitals:
Children and the elderly.”
“Children and the elderly.
Everyone who has stayed here.
Everyone who still lives here.”
Said a municipal driver.
“No-one apart from us.
Will do this.
We realise that if.
We abandon these people.”
“No one else.
Will drive them.”
“No-one apart from us.
Will do this.”
“The third is its slowness in taking a jest.
Should you happen to venture on one,
It will sigh like a thing that is deeply distressed:
And it always looks grave at a pun.
Like his colleagues.
He has also been.
Targeted by ‘orcs’ drones.
Targeted by ‘orcs’ drones.
He was hospitalised.
With a broken rib.
And shrapnel embedded.
In his chest earlier this year.
“We work like rats.
In a cage.
We get attacked.
From every side.”
“But we keep driving.”
“But we keep driving.”
“We work like rats.
In a cage.”
“The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines,
Which it constantly carries about,
And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes—
A sentiment open to doubt.
Towards the end of.
Your conversation with him.
You asked him whether he.
Ever considered leaving Kherson.
“I never thought of leaving.
This is where I was born.
This is where I live.
And this is where I’ll live.”
“And this is where I’ll live.
Until the very end.
I’m not going anywhere.”
I’m not going anywhere.”
“The fifth is ambition. It next will be right
To describe each particular batch:
Distinguishing those that have feathers, and bite,
From those that have whiskers, and scratch.
“For, although common Snarks do no manner of harm,
Yet, I feel it my duty to say,
Some are Boojums—” The Bellman broke off in alarm,
For the Baker had fainted away.
*Because I read “The drivers risking death on Ukraine’s most dangerous bus routes” by Vitaly Shevchenko on 31 May 2026, and also “Why are Ukrainians calling Russians ‘orcs’?” by James FitzGerald on 30 Apr 2022, on the BBC news.
So, I wrote this poem, including a story of Anatoly, a story of Dobrinova, a story of Eduard, and a story of Maksym, led by ‘The Hunting of the Snark’ written by Lewis Carroll, you know.
Please read the original story on the BBC news:
‘They’re hunting buses’: The Ukrainian drivers risking death on the routes of Kherson
