Despite measures taken by Moscow to secure a monopoly on information regarding the war in Ukraine, Russian independent journalists continue to cover this topic. Veridica has selected a number of press articles describing what is happening in Ukrainian oblasts under Russian control: how the Russian armed forces are abusing the locals, how men have started disappearing, how the new “military-civilian” administration is installed and who the key figures appointed as leaders of the newly conquered territories are.
THE INSIDER: “They’re loading stolen goods into trucks and raping 11-year-old girls”. The testimonies of inhabitants of occupied Kherson.
The city of Kherson has been under the occupation of Russian forces since early March. Approximately half of the city’s population and a fifth of the oblast’s total population has left. Those who’ve remained were originally staging rallies expressing their support for Ukraine. Subsequently, the occupation forces have started terrorizing the local population. Locals have revealed for INSIDER the extent of mass-kidnappings, tortures, plunders and rapes.
Sergey: “A truck filled with soldiers would drive up, the whole family was thrown out of the house, then they would steal all the house appliances.”
“I work as a volunteer in Kherson. We’ve received a large number of reports of apartments getting robbed. In one village, the Russian soldiers seized the residents’ private vehicles. Sometimes they return the cars, sometimes they don’t. There have been cases when a Kamaz truck filled with soldiers would drive up, the whole family was thrown out of the house, and all the house appliances were taken out of the house (washing machines, vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, even kitchen hoods), loaded into trucks and taken away. Later they started abusing the locals too. In one village in northeastern Kherson, they raped two little girls: one was 11, the other 14. Neighbors say Kadyrov’s men did it. All this time, men and women were beaten in house cellars. They weren’t interrogated, it was just on outburst of violence: they beat them for sport.
[…]
In mid-March, a Russian patrol stopped a pregnant girl on the street. As she later recalled, there was also a woman on the patrol unit. They emptied her pockets and found messages on her phone, sent by her boyfriend who serves in the Ukrainian armed forces. For that they shoved her into a car, put a bag over her head and took her to a building, where she was interrogated and tortured for a long while. She was even beaten by that woman, which is very surprising. The men threatened to rape her. Then she was simply thrown out of the car and told “be grateful we let you live”.
On May 9, the park in Kherson hosted a propaganda rally marking Victory Day, but local residents turned up wearing yellow ribbons in their chests, as a sign of protest against the occupation forces. All protesters were detained and taken to undisclosed locations. Some of them have not yet returned home”.
Olga: “Mom opened the gate and they put a rifle to her head”
“Dad was out at the market, looking for food, because there’s a shortage of goods in Kherson right now. Only my mother, Irina, was at home with my younger brother, Sasha. […]
They called dad and asked how long it would take for him to get home. They waited for him, and there were another six soldiers waiting outside. Which means eight soldiers had come to take away one civilian. […] “We’ll have a chat, then we’ll bring him back.” This was on May 7 at 13:30. We still haven’t heard from him since. We don’t know where he was taken and why. My father is an ordinary person, he is in no way whatsoever connected to politics. Later I heard dozens of other people had experienced similar incidents. On May 7 there was a mass “cleansing” of men throughout the city. Who did it? Who needed it? What drove them? We still wonder if our father is still alive and it makes us burst into tears. […]”
MEDUZA: Who is helping the Kremlin gain a foothold in occupied territories? Antivaxxers, anti-Maidan activists and people accused of treason are installed in key leadership positions in the occupied territories
The first stage of the “special operation” against Ukraine ended with the creation of a foothold in the occupied south, bordering part of the annexed Crimean Peninsula, as well as the self-proclaimed DNR. Most of the Kherson region and part of Zaporizhzhia are now under Russian military control. “Military-civilian administrations” are now being established in occupied cities, designed to conceal the occupation of the new power. The Kremlin is trying to repeat the strategy of the 2014 in Crimea and Donbas, but the result hangs on the outcome of the battle.
On May 11, authorities in the Kherson oblast, controlled by Russia, announced the incorporation of the oblast into the Russian Federation as a done deal – they didn’t even call a referendum, like they did in Crimea, simply claiming this was a request to Putin from the “new authorities” in the region. […]
Russian authorities are extremely interested in maintaining control over the land corridor to Crimea, as well as over the North Crimean Canal, which is providing clean water to the entire peninsula (the Canal was taken by the Russians on the first day of the war). In the past, Ukraine’s blockade of this water infrastructure caused a shortage of drinking water in Crimea. Under these circumstances, the establishment of a quasi-state entities, similar to the self-proclaimed republics in Donbas, is not something surprising.
The Kremlin’s hopes and political reality in Ukraine
The Russian leadership perhaps hoped and imagined this will be 2014 all over again, when the internal unrest in Ukraine allowed Moscow to play the separatist card in the disgruntled regions. The Kremlin relied on the loyalty of some of the local elites, associated with the Party of Regions of the former president, Viktor Yanukovych and movements such as “anti-Maidan”. It was assumed at the time that proclaiming the sovereignty of southeastern Ukrainian regions would result in the creation of the “Novorossiya” confederation, which in turn would be a protectorate of the Russian Federation.
One advocate of this plan was Oleg Tsarev, a former deputy in the Supreme Rada on behalf of the Party of Regions, who to this day has been campaigning for the establishment of Russian control over southern Ukraine. (In 2014, Tsarev left Ukraine, being investigated for separatism and sentenced in absentia to 12 years in prison.)
On the whole, this plan didn’t work even then, with the exception of a small part of Donbas. Even in DNR and LNR it was necessary to create a new “elite”, since representatives of the previous regional administration remained loyal to Kyiv or preserved their neutrality.
For eight years, the situation went from bad to worse for Russia: the consolidation of elites and society around the sovereignty of Ukraine is unprecedented, and there are fewer people willing to collaborate with the Russians. In addition, in the Kherson oblast, pro-Russian demonstrations were weaker compared to Donbas, Kharkiv and even Zaporizhzhia even in 2014.
In the fall election of 2020, representatives of the pro-Russian party (OPZZh) secured the highest number of seats in regional and city councils of Kherson. The party was founded by Viktor Medvedchuk, whom people call “Putin’s godfather. However, the local officials were in no hurry to pledge their loyalty to the occupation forces.
“We represent different parties, but now we are all one party – the party of Ukrainians, and we all oppose the so-called KhNR”, the leader of the OPZZh faction in the Kherson city council, Yuri Stelmashenko said in mid-March. The same view was shared by the mayor of Kherson, Igor Kolykhaev, a member of the party of ex-president Petro Poroshenko: “People want to live in Ukraine, not in some makeshift republic”.
Prior to April 26, Kolykhaev continued to work in the city, remaining loyal to Kyiv and flying the Ukrainian flag above the City Hall. As an alternative to Ukrainian elected authorities, the Russian military started to set up “military-civilian administrations” in occupied cities, drafting second-tier and third-tier local cadres as well.
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MEDIAZONA: Whoever holds the rifle has the power. Who are the mayors and governors of occupied territories appointed by Moscow?
In the third month of the war, Russia started establishing civilian administrations in the newly occupied territories. Pro-Russian activists are appointed at the helm of oblasts and cities. In some cases, these are local politicians with a vast political experience, whereas at different times they are people who are virtually unknown to the public. One in particular was arrested for kidnapping, while another such figure was sentenced for pedophilia, Ukrainian authorities say.
Russia appointed Vladimir Saldo as the governor of the Kherson oblast. Saldo was mayor of Kherson over 2002-2012. […] Later he became a deputy in the Rada on behalf of the now-banned Party of Regions. Ever since 2015, Saldo has been viewed as a pro-Russian politician.
[…]
Denis Pashenko claimed in 2016 that Saldo tried to kidnap him in the Dominican Republic. As a result, Saldo spent three months in pre-trial arrest. The Center for Investigative Journalism of Ukraine claims the two couldn’t agree to share a number of real estate properties. Also in 2016, the Security Service of Ukraine investigated Saldo based on intercepted phone calls leaked to the press, according to which Saldo was collaborating with the FSB. […]
The deputy head of the regional administration, Kirill Stremousov is a pro-Russian militant, the con-founder of the Tavria News agency and the organizer of the “Thank you for the Victory” marathon. Stremousov is the former leader of the local branch of the Socialist Party. According to Chesno.org, Stremousov shot a person and fired his gun in a newspaper office, beat a police officer and was investigated in connection with an attack on an SBU convoy. During the Covid pandemic, Stremousov said “I have five little children, whose birth I attended personally and who are all healthy and don’t need any experiments.”
The mayor of Kherson, Alexander Kobets, is a deputy in the city council, according to the Russian side. The official list of the City Council, however, makes no mention of this person. Kobets’s name doesn’t appear in the website cache either.
Originally, the residents of Kherson believed the Russian-appointed mayor was a teacher at the Navy High School of the Navy Academy of Kherson, who had run for the Kherson City Council on behalf of the “Voice” party. As it eventually turned out, the mayor is “a completely different Alexander Kobets, whom no one in the city really knows.”
The Center for Investigative Journalism of Ukraine claims Alexander Kobets is a former KGB and SBU agent who lived and had business dealings in Kyiv. At the start of the war, Kobets reportedly left the city. Journalists could not find any official photo of him. […]”
