Tear gas, arrogance, and resistance: Life in Russia-occupied Kherson

She knew it wasn’t wise to argue with Russian troops occupying her home city of Kherson, in southern Ukraine, but Aliona says she was beyond caring, angry at the arrogance, ignorance, and wanton violence she was witnessing.

When a Russian patrol stopped her in a park and asked if she could add money to their Ukrainian SIM cards – they would pay her, they said – the homemaker refused and lied, saying she could not do it.

Then the Russians asked: “How do you feel about us?”

Here the truth came out, in the first and only major city occupied by Russian forces, where Ukrainians mounting frequent protests against the Russian presence have been shot at, hunted down in their homes, and kidnapped, residents say.

Aliona, who like others in this article asked that only her first name be used, says she gave the Russian patrol an earful.

“I told them, ‘How can I relate to you when we are lying on the floor and the neighbors’ house is being shelled? When civilians die? When a grandmother and her grandson died when you shot at their car?’” she recalls.

The Russians answered: “But we told them to stop, they did not stop.”

“You just turned their car into a coffin,” Aliona says she admonished. “You didn’t even fire a warning shot.”

The cruel brutality of what the Russian military is capable of inflicting upon civilians is being revealed now in Bucha, northwest of the capital, Kyiv. There, scores if not hundreds of bodies – many with their hands tied behind their backs, and shot execution-style at close range – were left in the streets, basements, and mass graves by Russian forces as they withdrew last week, according to Western journalist eyewitnesses.

U.S. President Joe Biden has called for a war crimes case to be assembled against Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia denies that a single civilian was harmed in Bucha, and calls reports of atrocities by its troops “fake news” staged by Ukraine.

Yet even in Kherson, 45 miles southeast of Mykolaiv near the Black Sea, where Russia may want to win over citizens to create a pro-Russian statelet called the “Kherson People’s Republic,” the occupation has been brutal, if less so than in Bucha, where streets are littered with incinerated Russian armor and evidence of abundant shelling.

Reuters

Live-streamed footage shows people holding a banner in the colors of the Ukrainian flag as they protest Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Kherson, an occupied city in the south of the country, March 13, 2022.

Images of wholesale destruction in Bucha and further northwest in Borodyanka, as well as a host of other districts that Russian troops have now withdrawn from, are resulting in the increased departure of citizens from Kherson the past three days, says Mayor Igor Kolykhaev.

“Every single person living in Kherson and in the Kherson region cannot wait until the entire region will be freed, but ... as of now, this is surely not an easy task,” Mr. Kolykhaev told CNN Wednesday. “And obviously, given the recent news ... I can see that there is panic growing in the city of Kherson,” he said, citing the “threat of bombardment.”

Under the Russian yoke

The exchange between Aliona and the Russian troops – these soldiers were “experienced fighters with new weapons and in new uniforms, not boys” in “old Soviet helmets,” she says – illustrates the challenge of living under the Russian yoke in Ukraine.

It reveals, too, the disconnect between the occupier and the occupied, and Russian troops’ inconsistent treatment of Ukrainians in Kherson, at least, which veers from following apparent, occasional orders to “be polite,” to actions of lethal cruelty.

Residents of Kherson spoke to The Christian Science Monitor by phone even as the Ukrainian Army mounts a counter-offensive to recapture the port city of some 280,000 residents, which Ukrainian officials say faces a “humanitarian catastrophe” of food and medicine shortages due to a Russian blockade.

It is just one of several fronts where Ukrainian forces are beginning to reverse Russian gains after six weeks of war.

In her exchange with the Russian patrol, Aliona says she was “too depressed by my emotional state” to fear their reaction.

Falling back on one Moscow justification for Russia’s invasion, the soldiers said they would soon “expel the Nazis” – especially from Mykolaiv, which has so far blocked the Russian advance across southern Ukraine – and “everything will be fine.”

Aliona said she is a Kherson native, and this is the “first time I hear about Nazis.”

Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters

Ukrainian soldiers walk next to destroyed Russian tanks and armored vehicles in Bucha, Ukraine, April 6, 2022.

Then the Russians asked if she was aware that Ukraine had planned to attack Russia with biological weapons on March 1 – another unsubstantiated Moscow claim.

“I only know that, on March 1, I was going to take my child to school, and you took that from me,” Aliona replied, angrily. “You took everything from me: My friends who immigrated who knows where, the peace of mind of my child who is afraid to go to the windows ... afraid to walk down the street.”

Kidnapping campaign

Video posted online by Kherson residents shows anti-Russian street protests broken up by Russian soldiers firing live rounds, tear gas, and stun grenades. Residents describe a campaign to kidnap local activists.

“Many of us are now conducting a quiet guerrilla war,” says Aliona.

The son of a neighbor was recently caught at a checkpoint with videos of Russian vehicles he had posted to TikTok, she says. His Russian captors pulled out four teeth, all his fingernails, and broke his ribs before releasing him with a warning he would be watched.

“We worry that Kherson is not talked about in the world news, though people regularly disappear here,” says Aliona. “They interrogate people, rob people, and in every way suppress any resistance. But we hold on.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week disciplined two Security Service of Ukraine generals who had been in charge in the Kherson region, stripping them of their rank for “violating their oath to Ukraine.” Residents believe that was for leaking addresses of civil society activists and the families of those serving in the Ukrainian military and intelligence – lists the Russians have used in door-to-door efforts to erase anti-Russian sentiment.

That is not the only result of occupation that grates on the people of Kherson, who describe intrusive checkpoints, abductions, Russian looting of shops, and food and cash shortages.

“For us it is difficult, mentally,” says Raisa, a social worker in her mid-fifties. Especially irritating are vehicles marked with the letter “Z,” which has been adopted by Russians, on the battlefield and in their homeland, to show support for the war.

“We constantly see cars marked with ‘Z’ in the city, big and small,” says Raisa. “When they entered the city, they plundered our car dealerships and now they are driving around in new cars with ‘Z’ stickers. To say this is unpleasant is to say nothing.”

Reuters

At a protest against Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a still image from video shows demonstrators reacting to stun grenades thrown by Russian troops, in Kherson, Ukraine, March 21, 2022.

Cash is in short supply, after “our guests” – says Raisa, referring to the Russians – pulled several ATMs from walls, causing banks to stop resupplying them.

“I admire these people who go to protests because it takes courage, and courageous they are,” says Raisa, whose social work has prevented her from going. Caught near one protest, where locals regularly chant, “Kherson is Ukraine!” and “Shame on you!” she experienced herself the percussion of flash-bang grenades and the taste of tear gas.  

In another incident, she says, she was stopped by a man in civilian clothes, who covered his face with a balaclava and asked her for directions to a specific address.

“They detain people and push them for cooperation ... and since our people are not in the mood for cooperation, they let them go – but some still cannot be found,” says Raisa.

“Waiting for our army”

Even if the Russian presence in Kherson has had a lighter touch than front lines near Kyiv, or in cities devastated by constant bombardment like Mariupol or Kharkiv, the occupation has upended Ukrainian lives.

“I have not yet met those people who would support Russia,” says Lena, a 30-something graphic designer in Kherson. “Many of my friends, even those who used to be pro-Russian, have now changed their point of view.

“They were infuriated by everything Ukrainian,” she says, “and said the Ukrainian language is the language of villagers. Now they hang Ukrainian flags and began to speak Ukrainian.”

Lena says she is “too emotional” about the Russian presence, and describes taking risks by swearing at and making rude gestures toward passing convoys of Russian “orcs” – an increasingly used term for Russian troops among Ukrainians, based on the evil, subhuman creatures from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

“Everyone is very hopeful and waiting for our army to return,” says Lena. “At the same time, I sometimes meet people in lines in stores who sound like they have lost faith. They say Kherson was abandoned, but I think this is the work of Russian propaganda in order to induce panic.”

Joy has been in short supply, says Lena, as Russian troops have searched neighboring houses, and placed snipers on rooftops.

Happiness comes in glimmers, though, at news of another village “liberated” by Ukrainian soldiers, as they advance from Mykolaiv toward Kherson.

“The most joyful day will be when our forces are in the city,” says Lena. “I will meet them with flowers.”