Russia is determined to erase references to Ukraine in its occupied areas of the country.
Russia, which launched its invasion on February 24, failed in its initial aim to quickly capture the capital Kyiv, deciding in late March to regroup and focus its efforts east instead.
For those living there, it means fear, intimidation and changes in their lifestyles, from money to internet access.
Russian troops guard the entrance to the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant on the Dnieper River in Kherson region, Ukraine, May 20, 2022. AP Photo
Making Ukrainians Russian
In the southern cities of Kherson and Melitopol, which was the first major city captured by Russia, Russia started giving people Russian passports.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reacted to this in May, calling it a “gross violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, the norms and principles of international humanitarian law.”
It said this “illegal passporting” was taking place in Kherson and Zaporizhia, Crimea, and the occupied regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, 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 Russian legal, political and economic space”.
In May, Russian President Vladimir Putin also approved a system to quickly obtain Russian citizenship for people living in occupied Ukraine.
Russia also introduced the ruble, its own currency, in 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.
Earlier this week, it announced that it had detained the mayor of Kherson. In March, she also appointed a new mayor in Melitopol after kidnapping the previous president.
An official in Kherson’s new, Russian-backed administration also told Reuters it had begun preparations for a referendum on whether the region should join Russia.
It 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 layer of democratic or electoral legitimacy”.
Fear of torture
People who remained in the towns reported a heavy presence of Russian troops, and people who left said they were tortured after speaking out about the Russian occupation.
People in Russian-occupied areas are also afraid to go outside because they fear the soldiers, the BBC reported.
And reports from Ukrainians in Russian-occupied Ukraine are becoming increasingly rare as Russia imposes brutal new laws, interrogates people and takes over the Internet, imposing its own surveillance and censorship.
But such changes have been taking place since the beginning of the Russian invasion.
The Guardian reported in March that anti-Russia protests had stopped, with one resident of Nova Kakhovk, in Kherson Oblast, telling the newspaper that Russian authorities had threatened to cut off water and electricity if there were more demonstrations.
People wave Ukrainian flags during a rally against Russian occupation at Svoboda Square in Kherson on March 5, 2022. AP Photo/Olexandr Chorny
Culture oriented
In April, Russian officials in the occupied territories began replacing Ukrainian media with their own, shutting down Ukrainian news programs and instead featuring pro-Russian content, the BBC reported.
A month earlier, 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 detained 50 employees of a Ukrainian news outlet based in the city for five hours this month, the BBC reported.
One journalist told the broadcaster that Russia had threatened them to reveal details of pro-Ukraine activists and soldiers in the area, and to play Russian propaganda on their stations.
A school principal told CNN in April that they searched her home for Ukrainian school 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 can’t leave, Angelique Apeyrou, 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.
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