Ukraine has also carried out limited counterattacks near Kherson, further pressuring Russian forces. The region is critical to Russian sovereignty on the Black Sea coast of Ukraine and controls access to the Crimean peninsula. It is not clear how many Russian forces are in or near Kherson, but an occupation against a hostile local population requires far more troops than a peaceful occupation of territory. Russia’s leaders have given priority to the military campaign against any government resemblance. “It is clearly not something they can invest in right now,” said a US official.
Three assassination attempts
The first attack in Kherson took place on June 16, when an explosion broke the windows of a white Audi Q7 SUV. The vehicle was severely damaged, but the target of the attack survived.
Eugeniy Sobolev, the pro-Russian head of the penitentiary service in occupied Kherson, was hospitalized after the attack, according to Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news agency.
Less than a week later, a second pro-Russian official in Kherson was targeted. This time the attack succeeded. On June 24, Dmitry Savlushenko, the pro-Russian official in charge of the Department of Youth and Sports for the Kherson region, was killed, RIA Novosti reported. Serhii Khlan, an adviser to the head of Ukraine’s Kherson Military-Political Administration, called Savluchenko a “traitor” and said he had been blown up in his car. Hlan declared: “Our partisans have another victory.”
On Tuesday, the car of a third pro-Russian official was set on fire in Kherson, according to Russia’s state-run Tass news agency, although the official was not injured. It is not clear who carried out the attacks. There does not appear to be a central administration leading an organized resistance, officials said, but attacks have increased in frequency, particularly in the Kherson region, which Russia seized in March at the start of its invasion.
A source familiar with the Western intelligence service was more skeptical about whether the resistance could evolve from partisan attacks into a more organized campaign capable of managing the attacks and providing weapons and instructions.
So far, the resistance has not reduced Russia’s control over Kherson, said a source familiar with Western intelligence.
But in the long run, the United States estimates that Russia will eventually face a counter-insurgency by the local Ukrainian population.
“I think Russia will face significant challenges in trying to establish any kind of stable administration in these areas, because potential collaborators – more prominent – will be killed and others will live in fear,” said Michael Kofman. , director of studies for Russia at the Center for Naval Analysis, a think tank based in Washington.
Making Russian governance difficult
On Tuesday, Russian-appointed authorities in the Kherson region arrested the city’s elected Ukrainian mayor, Ihor Kolykhaiev, hours before announcing plans for a referendum on joining Russia. The pro-Russian military-political administration accused Kolykhaiev of encouraging people to “believe in the return of neo-Nazism.” Kolykhaeiv’s adviser said Russian authorities also confiscated computer hard drives, looted safes and searched for documents. Earlier this month, the Ukrainian military said “invaders” had stormed Kherson State University and abducted the rector. Russian forces have gradually introduced the ruble as the local currency and issued Russian passports. In Mariupol, pro-Russian authorities celebrated the so-called “liberation” of the city in May. The Russian-aligned Donetsk People’s Republic changed road signs from Ukrainian to Russian and erected a statue of an elderly woman holding a Soviet flag. Meanwhile, the emblematic sign of Mariupol painted in Ukrainian colors was repainted in Russian colors. Despite Russia’s efforts to eradicate Ukrainian history, ethnicity and nationalism from Kherson and other occupied territories, the Ukrainian people are showing a willingness to resist. “The conquerors and the local collaborators are making more and more loud statements about [the] “The Kherson region joins Russia,” a Ukrainian official said last week, “but every day more and more Ukrainian flags and inscriptions appear in the city.” Attempts to violently wipe out Ukrainian culture and dictate a Russian hegemony have backfired in some cases, according to a senior NATO official. “There have been reports of assassination attempts against some of the quizzes that have been put in place to be governors, mayors [and] “Quisling is a traitor working with an enemy force named after a Norwegian World War II official who worked with the Nazis. I will bring you there to remove these positions. from taking them from the beginning. “ As an occupying power in Kherson – in particular, a power that seems to intend to maintain control – Russia must provide basic services in the territories it manages, such as clean water and garbage collection. However, the United States estimates that resistance operations are making it difficult to provide governance and basic services, said one US official. The United States knew there was a “serious network of resistance” inside Ukraine that could take power if and when the military failed, the official said. Prior to the invasion, the United States expected the uprising to erupt in conjunction with the guerrilla war, following a brief period of intense fighting in which Russia prevailed. But the war has been going on for months now, with many analysts predicting a much bigger conflict. A senior US official warned a Russian counterpart before the clash that they would face an uprising if they invaded Ukraine and tried to seize territory, the official said. But the warning fell on deaf ears and the invasion proceeded, driven in part by insults and bad intelligence. Russia believed that its forces would be accepted with open arms and would quickly crush any resistance, misconceptions that quickly collapsed but did nothing to change the calculations of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Coffman says it is unclear what kind of government framework Russia will try to create to exercise control, but there is no doubt that it intends to retain territory. After facing prolonged, bloody uprisings in Afghanistan and Chechnya, the Kremlin knew how to anticipate another possible uprising in Ukraine. “They saw it coming,” Coffman said. “That’s why they set up filter camps and sent a large part of the population from the occupied territories.” CNN’s Tim Lister, Barbara Starr and Zachary Cohen contributed to this report.
