Kherson: Aid and Intimidation Under Occupation

Soon after the Russians occupied his village of Velyka Oleksandrivka in the Kherson region, 71-year-old Mykhailo managed to withdraw his pension and sell some of the garlic he had grown.

This left him only 9,000 hryvnias (about 300 dollars at the then-exchange rate) to live on.

Amid the ongoing uncertainty of the war, Mykhailo said he felt he had no choice but to accept humanitarian aid from the occupying forces.

“Russian soldiers came to each household several times to donate products,” he continued. “They didn't force anyone: you could either take it or not. But you need to eat something, right?”

As Ukrainian forces liberated the southern region after nine months of occupation, residents have told how the Russian forces used a carrot-and-stick approach with the local population. 

Alongside the provision of humanitarian aid to win their hearts and minds, the occupiers routinely arrested and mistreated those who challenged them.

For instance, residents over 50 years of age were not harassed.

“On the first day of the occupation, the Russian military checked the documents of all residents who remained in the village and treated people of [more advanced] age with courtesy: they never entered the houses without the permission of the host, they were not rude,” said Mykola, 70, another Velyka Oleksandrivka resident.

Younger men, however, were automatically under suspicion of cooperating with Ukrainian intelligence. Numerous cases of arbitrary arrests and torture were reported, particularly among local government representatives, journalists and former members of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO), run by Ukraine’s security forces in the Donbas region between 2014 and 2018.

A neighbour of Mykola’s, a young man in his early 30s, was tortured after Russian soldiers asked him to show the contents of his smartphone. When he said he only had a basic keypad mobile phone, they said that he was lying and arrested him.

Ivan Samoilenko, head of the Stanislav hromada, or territorial community, was detained twice, in June and September 2022.

“[They] did not torture me. They tried to intimidate and negotiate [collaboration], with no success,” Samoilenko, from the village of Shyroka Balka, told IWPR.

LIFE ON THE FRONTLINE

The push to liberate Kherson started on August 29, when Ukraine’s armed forces launched a southern counteroffensive to expel Russian forces occupying the southern regions of Kherson and Mykolaiv regions. Military analysts considered this to be the third strategic phase of the war, along with the eastern counteroffensive and the ongoing fight in Donbas.

Located about 20 kilometres south-west from Kherson, Stanislav hromada comprises four villages on the Dnieper-Bug estuary which were occupied on February 25, the day after the full-scale invasion began. During the counteroffensive on the southern front, the frontline villages were under constant shelling.

Samoilenko said that the occupation authorities appointed a woman to act as what he described as a “gauleiter” - the Nazi-era term for regional governor - to administer the hromada and manage aid deliveries.

“Most residents did not accept neither her nor the aid,” he stated. “Many residents work, have their own farms, and did not want help from occupiers.”

Incentivised opportunities to receive Russian passports were also unpopular.

“Russians paid locals to get Russian passports,” Mykola told IWPR, noting that collaborators had access to goods, as well as electricity, that were unavailable to most.

“You would get 5,000 roubles (83 US dollars) if you’d agree and 10,000 roubles after getting the passport. I don't know anybody who agreed. They also distributed pensions in Russian roubles in cash near the village council. Some people, of course, took them, but I do not know any personally.”

“Under such conditions, there were just a few options to survive."

Serhii, another Velyka Oleksandrivka resident, said he understood why some locals accepted Russian aid.

“Almost all agribusinesses in the area stopped operating, most villagers lost their jobs and were left with no income. The occupiers took all the agricultural machinery that belonged to local farmers,” the 43-year-old told IWPR. “Under such conditions, there were just a few options to survive: either evacuate to Kryvyi Rih, in the Dnipropetrovsk region, which was not occupied or accept handouts from the Russians.”  

Indeed, the local area has been left devastated. The Velyka Oleksandrivka hromada in Beryslav district - which includes 31 villages and towns - spent months on the frontline.

There is no gas, electricity or water supply, no shops or banks, and no services. Hospitals, police and schools are not operational. For months there has been no transport connection with other parts of Ukraine.

Most residents managed to evacuate early on and only about 1,000 people are left in the hromada out of nearly 16,000 pre-war residents. In Velyka Oleksandrivka, which had a population of about 6,400 before February 24, residents said that the whole village council, including the head Nataliia Kornienko, evacuated to Kryvyi Rih in early March.

The evacuation itself was dangerous as it proved impossible to negotiate a green corridor with the occupiers. The commander in Velyka Oleksandrivka had no authority to approve the corridor, and there was no communication with the higher ranks. As a result, civilian cars were shot at as they drove to Kryvyi Rih.

Mobile communication, however, worked fairly often. This was how Velyka Oleksandrivka hromada’s residents were informed about the so-called referendum to join the Russian Federation.

In late September Russian-installed officials staged these referenda in the occupied areas of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Samoilenko said that in the Stanislav territorial community, collaborators who he described as “so-called members of election commissions” went house by house with ballot boxes. Residents reported widespread intimidation to vote.

Ukraine’s security service is investigating criminal proceedings opened by the prosecutor general's office about the process.

“Preparations started in early August, when district election commissions were formed under the leadership of Maryna Zakharova, the so-called head of the Kherson region election commission,” a source with the security service told IWPR on condition of anonymity. “They had the region’s voter lists, but they were not working with them. Precinct commissions existed mainly on paper. Zakharova and her subdivisions listed fake names, registered fake drivers, and technical staff, and then received the money in cash for them.”

The source added that an estimated 20,000 people in the Kherson region took part in the vote, out of a pre-occupation population of over one million, adding that coercion combined with the provision of aid once again played a part.

He said, “Mostly were pensioners, who were promised food packages, and employees of enterprises, mostly municipal, who were forced by collaborators.”