A small green van sped down the main street Peninsula, with Russian troops on the other side of the river. Inside the car, the mayor held a helmet in her hands and looked through the bulletproof glass. When the first shots rang out, about 200 meters from the van, the mayor’s driver clenched his hands on the steering wheel and continued on his way through a thick cloud of smoke from the explosion. “Oh my God! I was attacked,” the mayor said as the van raced down the boulevard. The second rocket landed even closer.

Mayor of Kherson Galina Lukhova, almost killed six times. She sleeps on the campaign ranch at City Hall, and her salary is $375 a month. Kherson in southern Ukraine has become one of the most heavily bombed areas of the war, with Russian artillery bombarding the city almost once an hour.

Ms. Lukhova, the only female mayor of a major city in Ukraine, remains determined to create a normal life despite difficult circumstances. He presides over the daily meetings (in shelters). She asks the deputy mayors to speed up the work (on the construction of air defense shelters) and walks the streets talking to fellow citizens.

The mayor believes that her work can be described by four verbs: bury, clean, fix and nurture. Her mission to care for 30,000 residents of the city allows her to sleep only 40 minutes 24 hours a day, and her exhaustion has been such that she recently had to take intravenous glucose to keep her awake.

In a political culture dominated by imposing men like the former boxer-mayor of Kyiv, 46-year-old Lukhova stands out. Raised by a divorced mother in the former USSR, she does not forget the poverty of those years. At the age of 21, he taught English at a secondary school, and at 29, he was elected to the city council of Kherson.

In March, Russian troops set fire to her residence, and in June, Russian soldiers kidnapped her predecessor, who has since gone missing. In November, Lukhova returned to the liberated city, having received the love of the townspeople. However, the Ukrainian army lacks weapons and men to drive out the Russians, who remain on the opposite bank of the river.

Although Kherson is at the forefront of hostilities, residents continue to voice their grievances to the mayor. “I called a hundred times to fix the electricity, and no one comes,” says Elena Yermolenko, a pensioner who claimed on social media that the mayor of Lukhova was squandering humanitarian aid. The mayor vehemently denies the allegation. Oleksandr Slobozan, president of the Union of Ukrainian Municipalities, says he understands the allegations are part of a Russian smear campaign against Ukrainian officials.

Lukhova’s husband works as a taxi driver in another Ukrainian city, and their two adult children live away from Russian bombs.