Due to Ukrainian president Zelensky unfortunately ignoring the warnings of the best intelligence agencies in the world as well as Ukrainian intelligence, Ukraine was not ready for the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022. As a result, 20% of Ukrainian territory is under Russian occupation at the moment. So what is life like there? Here are some facts.

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There is a village 45 km from Mariupol where the sister of one of the refugees who is now staying in Edinburgh lives. She could not leave Ukraine as their mother is an elderly lady of 80 years old. Their lives are constantly in danger.  At first they did not want to exchange their Ukrainian passports for Russian passports. To encourage people to do it quickly, the Russians gave 140,000 roubles as a one-time allowance to the first people who did so. The two ladies still did not want to give up their Ukrainian passports. But there was no way they could get their pensions.  When their Ukrainian money ran out the only way to survive was to get a Russian passport and Russian currency. It was impossible even to buy bread without a Russian passport. Besides, the elderly woman needs medication so they had to exchange their Ukrainian passports. But as they hadn’t done it sooner the Russians put them on the list of people suspected to be unreliable. Their house is often searched and everything is turned upside down.

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The Russians conducted so-called elections. Armed soldiers went into every house with a ballot box where they had to cast their votes. It was terrifying to be so closely watched. It seemed as if one wrong movement and you’d be done for.

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There is often no electricity. People say that all the electricity pylons from Mariupol to other places round the city have fallen down.

But the main thing is it is very difficult from the moral point of view. You don’t know who you can talk to as some people would report you to the Russian authorities. Connection with the outside world is also very limited as communication is often bugged. And people are afraid to talk to each other. They are all in complete isolation. Russian TV tells them that there is no Ukraine. There was a case when a Russian soldier wanted to rape a girl in the middle of the day. Luckily, people managed to save her.  

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Russian occupation is particularly difficult for businesspeople like farmers. If they don’t exchange their Ukrainian passports for Russian passports their agricultural machinery will be confiscated and the Russians will lease their machinery to reliable farmers with Russian passports. In addition all their agricultural produce would be confiscated. And all their money.

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Besides, people with nice houses would be kicked out of their houses because the Russians would use them for their soldiers. There was a couple in that village who kept a shop. The Russians took their shop and all their money and their nice house though they allowed the wife to take some of her personal belongings.

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The brother of one of the Ukrainian refugees in Edinburgh is from Rozovka village 40km from Mariupol. He was a prominent doctor and a respected citizen. Just before the war he finished redecorating his house. Unfortunately, due to illness he is disabled and received a disability pension. The Russians confiscated his house and he had courage to say: “You should all be in the Hague.” The Russians arrested him.  During the interrogation he was offered the chance to collaborate. He refused and the Russians let him to go for the time being. Luckily his friends told him about the “green corridor” organised by the Red Cross in a nearby village and helped him to get there. As a result he managed to reach Zaporizhzhia though to the last second he was not sure they would manage. There were lots of Russian checkpoints. At the final checkpoint the Russians demanded money and would not allow them to cross to Ukrainian territory without paying them first. The Red Cross vehicle was the last in their column and could not help in any way. His wife said: “Glory to Ukraine” when she entered a shop. The Russian soldier hit her on her head with the butt of his rifle. Luckily, he did not break her skull but she had concussion and a bruised face. As for the house of his mother-in-law, it was also confiscated by the Russians. She had a large two storey house in the centre of the village and one day they came to her and said: “Tomorrow we will move into your house”. Russian officers are living there now.

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The doctor’s friend Petro, decided to escape to Rostov or Taganrog with his wife and two children by car. Unfortunately for them, they had a very nice car. The Russians confiscated it and sent Petro to prison. His wife did her best to free him. She paid a large sum to release her husband from prison. She contacted their relatives who helped her. The bribe was so good that the jailers ordered Petro to disappear from Russian territory within one and a half days. Luckily, with the help of some friends Petro left Russia for Europe.  

     

The state channel “Belarus 4Mogilyov” reported on 10th of January 2024 that 35 children arrived in Belarus from the town of Antrotsyt, Luhansk region, which has been occupied by the Russians since 2014. They would be cared for by the Ministry of Emergency Situations.  The children in the picture were dressed in tracksuits with Russian flags embroidered on their sleeves. There are a total of 4,000 adopted children in the occupied territories or deported to Russia. And Belarus?

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More than 1,500 Ukrainians have been kidnapped in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories for “cooperation with the Ukrainian underground”. Repression methods are used against civilians who publicly show discontent about the Russian occupation. Units of Russian special forces are busy looking for partisans.

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In occupied Melitopol 50% of the population did not exchange their Ukrainian passports for Russian passports. To find out who disobeyed, the Russians conducted a population census in Melitopol. Melitopol has been occupied for nearly two years by then and the Russians were planning to finish the process of Russianisation by the 1st of January 2024. If a person does not have a Russian passport it can mean just one thing. That person is on Russian territory illegally. Hence the Russians interview these people. The aim of these conversations is to force people to give up their Ukrainian passports. And actually without Russian passports the civil rights of people are limited. First of all, they cannot be recognized as the owners of their flats or houses because without a Russian passport you cannot get your property registered and thus no electricity will be provided to your house; you cannot sign a contract to use the internet  etc., your cannot register your car or be recognised as the owner of your car and you cannot drive your car as you would not have a Russian driving licence.

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In addition any person without a Russian passport cannot get medical help or be registered as a patient of a medical clinic.   

 

But the worst thing is that a person without a Russian passport is threatened with deportation. At the moment no one knows where the Russians are going to deport the person to. It used to be the last Russian checkpoint in Vasylivka but now nobody known what kind of deportation the Russians have in mind.

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The Russians are also conducting their policy of substitution of the local population with people from the Russian Federation. There are leaflets all over the city of Melitopol with “attractive” job propositions on the continental territory of the Russian Federation. In other words the Russians want to encourage people from Melitopol to leave their city, temporarily occupied by Russia, in order to change the national composition of the city. This was a typical policy conducted by the USSR in the Crimea and other regions.

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Mobilisation into the Russian army has been increased since the beginning of 2024. The Russians opened five new recruitment office branches in Zaporizhzhia region. The heads of these recruitment offices are former military and now retired officers from the Russian Federation. Their aim is to get accurate figures of people of call up age. These people have to undergo a medical examination, then two or three days of military training and that’s it. You are ready to serve. At the moment there are Melitopol citizens who have already been drafted into the Russian army and although the Russians don’t know if they can trust them with weapons, they send these drafted men to build military fortifications on the front line.

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Out of the 150,000 population of Melitopol, 70,000 are trapped in Russian occupation. 35,000 of those people did not accept Russian passports. But the Russians are trying to create a picture of 100% support for Russia in the occupied territory. It’s particularly important as the Russian elections are approaching. So the Russians collected signatures from the residents of Melitopol and that list was brought to Moscow. When residents of Russia see that there is absolute 100 % support of the population on the occupied territories of Ukraine they don’t want to fight on the Ukrainian front. Really why should they if the local Ukrainian population supports Russia, they should also go and fight Ukraine together with other Russians. But of course, nobody asked the Russians to come with their “liberation” to Ukraine. Nobody invited Russia to Ukraine. So the reasons are simple for increasing mobilisation on the occupied territories of Ukraine.

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The Russians are trying to build a new railway line to connect Mariupol and Melitopol. But as they are very close to the Zaporizhzhia front line, they want to build it along the coastline of the Sea of Azov. But they have not managed to do it yet as the resistance movement is very active in that region and knows about these Russian plans. Partisans have destroyed the Russians’ newly built Melitopol bridge so they can’t put their railway line into operation. That bridge was very important as the Russians believe that their Crimean bridge could soon be under Ukrainian attack. They also use the highways for their lorries and military personnel transport, ammunition and fortification building materials. They try to camouflage their vehicles. The enemy is getting ready for defensive operations. But the resistance movement is active too. They already know the names of one and a half thousand collaborators who will be brought to trial when Ukraine wins.

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Occupied Berdyansk. Colony number 77 is an Auschwitz of the 21st century.  It’s a torture chamber on the territory of Zaporizhzhia region. It contains the largest number of Russian torture cells. People call the prison “the Basement”. Starting from March 2022 thousands of Ukrainians have come through that “Basement”. Very few managed to get out of it. The fate of thousands is still unknown. The Russians capture people whom they suspect to be connected to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, or who give information to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The Russians check photograph galleries on mobile phones and even if a picture wasn’t even taken by the owner of the phone but was from the Internet (e.g. a capsized Russian military ship in the nearby port) that person would be considered to be a fire support officer and would be arrested and put to the “Basement”.