Russia, which launched its invasion on February 24, failed in its first objective of quickly capturing the capital, Kyiv, deciding in late March to regroup and focus its efforts in the east. For those who live there, that means fear, intimidation and changes in the way they live, from their money to their internet access. Russian troops guard an entrance to the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant on the Dnieper River in Kherson region, Ukraine, on May 20, 2022. AP Photo
Making Ukrainians Russian
In the southern cities of Kherson and Melitopol, which was the first major city Russia took, Russia started giving people Russian passports. Ukraine’s foreign ministry reacted to it in May calling it a “blatant violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, the rules and principles of international humanitarian law.” He said this “illegal passporting” was taking place in Crimea’s Kherson and Zaporizhia and the occupied regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, the separatist-ruled regions that Russia recognized as independent states before it invaded. Ukraine said the passports were further evidence of Russia’s aim to “conquer Ukrainian territories for their further occupation and integration into the legal, political and economic space of Russia”. In May, Russian President Vladimir Putin also approved a system to fast-track Russian citizenship for people living in occupied Ukraine. Russia also introduced the ruble, its own currency, into the Kherson region and other cities in the east and south in an attempt to replace the Ukrainian hryvnia.
Policy change
Russia also replaced Ukrainian mayors. He reported earlier this week that he had arrested the mayor of Kherson. In March, he also installed a new mayor in Melitopolis after the incumbent was kidnapped. An official in Kherson’s new, Russian-backed government also told Reuters that preparations had begun for a referendum on whether the region should join Russia. This was a scenario Western intelligence officials had long worried about, with the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe warning in May that it could give further Russian annexation a “cover of democratic or electoral legitimacy”.
The fear of torture
People who remain in the cities report a heavy presence of Russian troops, and people who left said they were tortured after speaking out about the Russian occupation. People in Russian-held areas are also afraid to go outside for fear of soldiers, the BBC reported. And reports from Ukrainians in Russian-occupied Ukraine are becoming less frequent as Russia imposes brutal new laws, interrogates people and takes over the internet, imposing its own surveillance and censorship. But such changes had taken place since the beginning of the Russian invasion. The Guardian reported in March that anti-Russian protests had died down, with a resident of Nova Kakhovk, in the Kherson region, telling the newspaper that Russian authorities had threatened to cut off water and electricity supplies if there were any more protests. People wave Ukrainian flags during a rally against Russian occupation at Svobody (Freedom) Square in Kherson on March 5, 2022. AP Photo/Olexandr Chornyi
Targeted culture
In April, Russian officials in the occupied territories began replacing Ukrainian media with their own, turning off Ukrainian news programs and turning on pro-Russian content, the BBC reported. Last month, Russian soldiers in the southeastern city of Berdyansk patrolled the city and local radio stations began playing Soviet ballads and pro-Russian propaganda, the Guardian reported. The Russians also arrested 50 employees of a Ukrainian news agency who were in the city for five hours that month, the BBC reported. A journalist told the TV station that Russia threatened them to reveal the identities of pro-Ukraine activists and soldiers in the region, as well as to put Russian propaganda on their stations. A school principal told CNN in April that they searched her home for Ukrainian textbooks, holding her daughter at gunpoint in the process. For those left behind in Russian-occupied Ukraine, this is the new way of life. Many of those who remain are there because they cannot leave, Angelique Appeyroux, head of operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Ukraine, told Politico in June. “Many of the people who stayed in their homes even as the fighting approached simply had no way to leave.”
