Mobile data, psychological pressure, threats and bribes determine the life of Ukrainians under the yoke of Moscow
Many citizens have long lived in an environment of fear and subjugation in which the Kremlin’s army keeps the Ukrainian regions under its yoke. Life under Russian occupation in Kherson and Zaporizhia was characterized by bribery, insecurity and the fear that bullets would go through their heads and their bodies would be buried in mass graves. “It was incredibly scary, the whole city was full of armed foreigners,” exclaimed 44-year-old Anton Ovsharov, a former engineer at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. His hometown is still controlled by Moscow, but not by the whole region, so he continues to hope that Volodimir Zelensky’s troops will liberate the area in the shortest possible time, and with it the whole country.
During the occupation, the main goal of the Kremlin soldiers seemed to be to find the phones of residents who could not flee upon arrival, according to the citizens themselves, now calm after Kiev freed Kherson from the clutches of Vladimir Putin. “They went from house to house with their guns. They collected the mobile phones in a bucket and left,” says Liudmila Shevchuk, 56 years old. Why these devices? According to the woman, the Russians feared that they would pass on their position to the Ukrainian forces. Both she and her husband, Oleksandr, kept them underground to avoid being taken. “Many of us have buried them. Those who didn’t do it on time were without them,’ he says.
These searches were also carried out on the street, such as Irina Myhailena, a 43-year-old real estate agent, who was stopped by soldiers as she was walking along a road with her daughter in Berdiansk, Zaporizhia region. “They took my bag and searched for my mobile phone,” recalls the woman, whose fear for her life and that of her daughter increased enormously at that time. That same day, she adds, “a friend’s 12-year-old daughter was walking down the street alone and they also stopped and searched her,” she says, recalling the anguish both the little girl and her parents suffered when she related what had happened.
Civilians were also threatened if they opposed the invading army. “We had to delete all our messages. And be careful with us when we say something to Russia,” explains Myhailena, who says that in that situation “no one felt safe”.
Given this scenario, many tried to flee the Moscow-controlled area, but not without advance payment. Bribes were the order of the day. Olga, a 57-year-old neighbor of Dudchani, in the Kherson region, says numerous Russian soldiers were willing to lead them to the Ukrainian positions. At first it was enough to offer them vodka, he says, but later “you always had to pay them.” Sometimes the payments consisted of handing over the keys to their vehicles. “Then we saw them driving our cars,” says Oleksandr Shevchuk. And what happened afterwards? “The Russians would take us and then they would come back and confiscate our property,” says Olga.
Shevchuk also recalls the “psychological pressure” exerted by the invaders to evacuate residents to Crimea, a peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014. The occupiers also seized profitable businesses, such as hotels in Berdyansk. “They come with the commander, they point their finger at what they want and they already have it,” Myhailena complains.
Subjugation is not always the answer for Ukrainians, tired of the occupiers after nine months of war since Putin ordered an invasion of the neighboring country on February 24. Some, though fearing reprisals, stick their chest out in the face of adversity and confront Moscow. How? For example, Oleksandr Gorbonosov is one of the civilians who has repeatedly poured sugar into the fuel tanks of the Russian army to render their vehicles unusable, even temporarily.
“However, we later realized that this was useless, because the Russians would go to the farmers and threaten to burn their equipment if they did not supply fuel,” says Gorbonosov from Energodar, in the Zaporizhia region. Although, like so many, he left his hometown when he found out that the Russians knew where they lived. “They have so many informants…”, explains this Ukrainian, who managed to escape in time to the area controlled by Kiev.
Source: La Verdad
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