Ukrainians in a Kherson village secretly worked as informants and used hunting and barbecuing references as codes to guide the next artillery strike on Russian positions: report

• Bilozerka, a village in the Kherson region, was seized at the beginning of Russia's invasion.
• A decentralized resistance movement formed among villagers, per The New York Times Magazine.

Some Ukrainians in the small settlement of Bilozerka, a village in the Kherson region, secretly worked as informants to aid the Ukrainian military during the Russian occupation last year.

Bilozerka, a small village of less than 10,000, was seized along with Ukraine's port city of Kherson during the first few weeks of Russia's invasion last February.

While some Ukrainians in the settlement defected and supported Russian presence, others started to participate in a decentralized resistance movement, risking their lives to work closely with the Ukrainian Armed Forces or Ukraine's security service SBU, James Verini reported for The New York Times Magazine.

Oleksandr Kysil, Bilozerka's police commander, was one of the locals who played a critical role in the sprawling resistance.

Closely familiar with the region, Kysil recruited "spotters" to help locate positions of Russian troops and equipment, according to the Times.

His house would be used for backgammon games that were actually a front for meeting and sharing intelligence, Verini reported.

Once a Russian position was confirmed, Kysil shared the information with his connections in the Ukrainian government. The military would then carry out precise artillery strikes.

Kysil told the Times how he and his spotters spoke in code and used hunting and barbecuing references to relay information.

"I would get a call from another hunter. I would tell him, 'Do you remember where we barbecued when we opened the hunting season? We barbecued at Khvylia.' The Russians had just entered there. He would say, 'Yeah, I remember.' And I would say, 'We should roast something there again,'" Kysil said, which meant that the strike was not successful.

After a spotter examines by how much the missile was off, Kysil would again send the information back to his contacts, according to the report.

To confirm a hit, Kysil might say, "It's fine, we've grilled all the meat."

Ukrainian soldiers retook Bilozerka and Kherson after Russian forces retreated last November.