Russian officials, following President Putin, say the occupation of Ukraine is not part of Russia’s plans. But what is happening in the captured cities shows otherwise: the Russian military is removing Ukrainian flags, key decisions are being made by military commanders, and the occupation authorities are trying to replace the hryvnia with the ruble.

The BBC surveyed pro-Russian publics and spoke to locals to understand what was really going on in the occupied territories.

“We are not going to change the regime in Ukraine, we have talked about it many times. We want Ukrainians to decide for themselves how they want to live. We want people to have freedom of choice,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in mid-April. in an interview with India Today, sitting against the backdrop of a massive clock with a pendulum in the form of a guitar fingerboard.

At the end of March, Dmitry Peskov, a foreign journalist and then a CNN correspondent, assured a foreign journalist. “Occupation is not one of the goals we have stated,” he said at the time.

In fact, they simply echoed Vladimir Putin’s promise on the night of February 24, when he announced in a threatening televised address to the Russians that the war with Ukraine had begun: “Our plans do not include the occupation of Ukraine. We are not going to impose anything on anyone. by force “.

At the same time, for example, Deputy Commander of the Central Military District Rustam Minnekayev, speaking at a meeting of representatives of the Sverdlovsk region’s defense industry in April, unexpectedly made a frank statement that the second stage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would be to create a corridor from Crimea to Transnistria. Donbass. That is, in fact, the capture of southern Ukraine.

This statement corresponds to what experts and the Ukrainian authorities have previously said about the Kremlin’s real goals. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calls Russian troops in the occupied territories exclusively occupiers.

The occupiers thought they could disconnect Ukrainians from television, disconnect our communications, take away food, cut off electricity, heat. They thought it would force Ukrainians to submit, but even if you deprive us of oxygen, we will breathe a sigh of relief. to say: “Get out of our land!” – said, for example, Zelensky.

As of the end of April, Russian troops had seized part of southern and southeastern Ukraine, including cities such as Berdyansk, Melitopol, Kherson, and Energodar. Independent journalists work there under great pressure, but what pro-Russian publicists say about life in these cities contradicts the promises of Putin, Lavrov and Peskov.

Berdyansk was occupied by Russian troops in late February, Melitopol, Kherson and Energodar in early March. Mariupol was captured in April, but not until the end: the Ukrainian military continues to hold positions on the territory of the Azovstal plant.

On March 8, the Telegram registered the Novy Melitopol channel, on March 9, Berdyansk ZaVtra, on March 16, the Kherson Herald, and on March 24, Energodar Segodnya.

The channels refer to each other, but there is a public that connects all regions: the project “Southern Bridge”, or “Yuginformburo”. The roots of these projects go back to Russia.

“Southern Bridgehead” has a website registered the day after the start of the war – February 25. Initially, it was based on the servers of the Russian hosting provider Beget from St. Petersburg, but then moved to the American Cloudflare, which allows you to hide the real owners of the site. The project’s contact mail is linked to Russian mobile numbers used in Siberia.

“Southern Bridgehead” enjoys the support of the authorities of the annexed Crimea. Correspondent of the Southern Bridgehead – Crimean environmental activist and blogger Serhiy Dubovyk – for example, interviewed the Deputy Chairman of the Crimean State Council, the Adviser to the Chairman of the Crimean State Council and the Chairman of the Alushta Public Council.

“I honestly don’t know the origins. A volunteer, so to speak, and I don’t know who finances there,” he told the BBC.

The editorial office did not respond to the BBC’s request.

Ukrainian channels have stopped broadcasting in the occupied territories – instead, Ukrainian citizens are offered to watch Russian ones, in particular “Crimea-24”. The latter broadcasts special news releases for the occupied territories under the double name “Kherson-24” – “Zaporozhye-24”. Although Zaporozhye is not captured by Russian troops.

“Thanks (to the head of Crimea) Serhiy Aksyonov, this would not have happened without him,” commented Oleh Tsaryov, a former member of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine who fled to Russia in 2014.

The issues are duplicated in the telegram channels of the “Southern Bridge” project – probably for those who do not watch TV. And also because for some time in Kherson Russian TV channels did not work again: on the night of April 27-28, a rocket attack in the city damaged the TV tower.

The BBC has studied how life in these occupied news coverage depicts life in the occupied Ukrainian territories.

“Good afternoon, on the air of” News-24 “, in this issue we will tell about the latest events that took place in the liberated territories of Ukraine”, – for example, the news block from April 20 begins.

“Liberated territories” is not an isolated remark. This is what the occupied territories of Ukraine call pro-Russian publics. It is not always specified from whom exactly they were “released”. But sometimes they explain that they are some “nationalists”.

“Spring mood and family walks. Berdyansk, liberated from nationalists, breathes a peaceful life. Entrepreneurs are building a” food bridge “with Crimea, and residents are preparing to celebrate Victory Day. eyeliner to the news story from April 21.

It is impossible to estimate the mood of the residents of Berdyansk according to the plot: except for an elderly woman, none of the ordinary people began to communicate with the correspondent from the Crimea Margarita Semenyuk. Only employees of the administration and one businesswoman were interviewed, but standing with their backs to the camera.

One of the most recurring plots is the replacement of Ukrainian state symbols with Russian ones, which again contradicts the Kremlin’s thesis that there are no plans for occupation. And, judging by the news, this is not done by locals, but by servicemen of the Russian army or Rosguard soldiers.

For example, on April 21, the Ukrainian flag was taken down in the village of Kozachi Tabory, Kherson Oblast. A video posted on the Southern Bridgehead shows a man in plainclothes throwing him to the ground and then hanging a Russian flag. A man in military uniform is watching this on earth.

In other settlements, Ukrainian flags were removed by the Russian military itself: for example, in the village of Novovasylivka and the town of Primorskoe in the Zaporizhia region (April 12 and April 23), in Skadovsk, Kherson region (April 15).

In the main square of Berdyansk, he was demonstratively filmed during the distribution of humanitarian aid.

“During the distribution of food at the request of local residents, members of the humanitarian convoy removed the Ukrainian flag from the main flagpole of the city. Applause can even be heard in the distance,” – said in a report in the local pro-Russian public. However, neither the requests themselves nor the applause are heard: the flag is taken down by the Russian military with machine guns.

On the Alley of Glory in Kherson, where the Russian flag also flies over administrative buildings, Russian Rosguard soldiers hung a “Victory Flag” – a copy of the flag raised over the German Reichstag in 1945. And they didn’t just hang him, they even took him under guard.

The guard was not accidental. The day before, pro-Russian activists – a rare example – had already hung the “Victory Flag” there, but it was quickly removed. This is not the only case: the Russian tricolor has also disappeared in Yakymivka, Zaporizhia region. The perpetrator was found to be a local resident who was forced to apologize on camera. The video of the apology, presented in the “Southern Bridgehead”, begins with a strict command of the operator: “Begin”.

The city of Dniprorudne, Zaporizhia region, was occupied in March.

For a while, Ukrainian symbols were in place, but in late April, the Russian military removed the Trident from the tower above the city council building and hung a Russian flag instead. The stele under the name of the city at the entrance to Dniprorudne was also painted in the colors of the “tricolor”.

“The military-civil administration of Dniprorudny has set itself the task of eliminating all symbols of the Kyiv regime,” the Kherson-24 presenter said.

The term “military-civil administration” is increasingly used in relation to the occupied areas of Ukraine.

Two BBC interlocutors from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, who asked not to mention their names, said that the term “military-civil administration” is unfamiliar to them. “It is not in any legislation, I have not heard such a phrase until this spring,” – said one of them.

However, the term “military-civil administration” is used even in Channel One reports on Russian television.

The most important adjective in this term is “military”: apparently, the local government that Russia is trying to create on the ground is subordinated to military commanders.

As in 2014, “people’s mayors” have appeared in the occupied Ukrainian territories. But, unlike in 2014, there were no popular assemblies at which they were nominated – the new civilian government is probably appointed by the military. The current city authorities are almost nowhere to cooperate.

As a result, for example, Halyna Danilchenko, a former accountant at a local plant and a deputy of the local city council from pro-Russian parties, became the “people’s mayor” of Melitopol. Berdyansk is currently managed by Oleksandr Saulenko, a mining engineer and deputy of the village council, and Energodar is headed by Andriy Shevchyk, a leading engineer of the Zaporizhzhya NPP and a deputy of the City Council.

Kirill Stremousov, a local politician and one of the leaders of the Ukrainian movement against coronavirus vaccination, who was suspected in 2019 of involvement in an attack on an editorial office of a Kherson newspaper using the Kherson region and traumatic weapons.

In Kherson, the Ukrainian administration, headed by Mayor Igor Kolykhayev, continued to work for a long time, “solving household and communal issues, no one was allowed to do anything else,” according to a BBC source involved. But on the evening of April 25, armed men entered the building, expelled everyone who was there, took the keys and set up their armed guards.

“I left at 7.45 pm – the flag of Ukraine was still above the city hall,” Kolykhayev wrote. On the morning of April 26, the flag was gone, the Southern Bridgehead reported.

The project’s telegram channels regularly publish reports of “people’s mayors” on the work for the day.

“We work, we persuade, we say that (schools) should be opened, children should learn,” Saulenko complained, for example, on April 17, standing in front of a camera in a park.

These were teachers who did not want to resume the educational process in the occupied territories. Although the head of the Crimea, Serhiy Aksonov, has already promised that teachers from Ukrainian schools will be retrained on the peninsula according to Russian standards.

BBC interlocutors from Kherson, Berdyansk and Kakhovka say that their children study remotely because, in addition to not wanting to resume the new process under the new rules, many teachers simply left.

Simultaneously with the appearance of “people’s mayors” in the captured cities, military commandant’s offices immediately started working, but their activities were not advertised much at first, the BBC reported. Now their dreaming is not hidden: they are united together with the “people’s mayors” in a “military-civil administration”: the same opponent of vaccination Stremousov in public is sometimes called not “vice-governor” but “deputy head of the military-civil administration of Kherson area “.

“Nova Kakhovka. In the central square near the Military-Civil Administration, the flag of the Russian Federation, the Flag of Victory and the flag of the USSR are proudly waving,” such a post, for example, appeared on April 22 in the Kherson Herald. That’s right – the “military-civil administration” – called the pro-Russian governing body of New Kakhovka and on the air “Crimea-24”.

“Military-Civil Administration” is also in Melitopol – all the same “Crimea-24” told how with its assistance a farmer from the village of Yakymivka, Zaporozhye region was able to get a parcel with sunflower seeds. In the end, the deadline passed even in the Russian state news agency TASS, where an interview was published with the deputy head of the Kakhovka military-civil administration, ex-MP from the pro-Russian party Pavel Filipchuk.

However, in the TASS report, the “military-civil administration of Kakhovka” has so far been marked as “temporary”.

“Our entire administration disbanded after the mayor resigned, and I was appointed head of the interim civilian military administration,” Filipchuk told TASS in an interview on April 19.

He did not specify who “appointed” him, but it seems to be about the Russian military. After all, it was the military commandant, for example, who appointed Oleksandr Saulenko “mayor of Berdyansk”: his order was quoted in the public of the “Southern Bridgehead”.

The key power in the city is in the hands of the military: in one of the publics of the “Southern Bridgehead” without a shadow of a doubt set out the order of the military commander, Colonel O. Bardin to appoint Saulenko four deputies, three of whom worked in local administration in early 2010 .

It is possible that this is Colonel of the Rosguard Alexander Bardin, who as of 2019 worked as the first deputy head of the Rosguard in the Ryazan region: it is the Rosguard, according to numerous reports, is responsible for monitoring the situation inside the occupied settlements. The Rosguard did not respond to a request from the BBC.

Military commanders appoint not only deputies but also “people’s mayors”. Thus, “by order of the military commander of the Zaporozhye region number 2 from 21.04.2022” (quote from the public “Southern Bridge”) the head of the village of Mikhailovka became Ivan Sushko, according to the local portal “Zabor” – an employee of the Mikhailov House of Culture .

In Melitopol, the main administrative building in the city – the district administration building – is occupied by the new military-civil administration. The military commandant’s office sits in the building of the state traffic inspectorate.

But the “people’s mayor” Galina Danilchenko was given a room only in the city house of culture named after Shevchenko, which quite eloquently shows her place in the occupation hierarchy.

On April 19, the Kherson Herald published a video in which “Deputy Head of the Civil-Military Administration Kirill Stremousov communicates with a vegetable seller at the Kherson market.”

“If it costs 30 hryvnias, how much would it cost in rubles?” he asks, holding a head of cabbage in his hands.

“Well, I don’t know,” the woman answers honestly.

“Would it cost 80 or 90 rubles?” – Stremous continues to sit down, but the woman spreads her arms again.

“Nothing. I’ll be moving soon,” he promises.

In a conversation with RIA Novosti in late April, Stremousov made an even louder statement: from May 1, he promised, both the hryvnia and the ruble would go to the Kherson region, and then the region would allegedly switch to ruble payments.

The ruble as a means of payment is a constant leitmotif in the materials of life in the occupied cities. Russian currency penetrates here in several ways.

One of them – one-time payments of 10 thousand rubles for retirees and government employees. The payment, according to official reports, should be issued as humanitarian aid from the Russian Ministry of Emergencies. The staff of the Ministry of Emergencies, for example, issued it in Henichesk, Kherson region, but the queue was guarded by Rosguard soldiers. But payments are not everywhere: as of April 19, there were no payments in Kakhovka.

Another way is trade with Crimea, which is actively encouraged by both the Crimean and occupation authorities.

“Strawberries are ripening on the left bank of the Xepso region. Kherson strawberries are eagerly awaited in Crimea. The peninsula is expected to attract tourists for the May holidays. So the berries will definitely be in demand,” said the host of Kherson-24.

“A consignment of vegetables from the Zaporizhia region has arrived in Crimea,” said Oleksandr Tryanov, the minister of industrial policy of the annexed peninsula.

But so far this does not lead to an increase in the ruble mass everywhere – this is recognized even by the occupying power. “Mostly (in the course) of the hryvnia, because there are not enough rubles. Rubles appear only when farmers export products, sell them and bring some rubles here. But mostly they do not put them into circulation, save, do not know what will happen tomorrow.” , – the head of “military-civil administration” of Kakhovka Pavlo Filipchuk admitted to TASS.

“There are rubles in the city, but they are not in free circulation yet,” a Kherson businessman told the BBC, who asked not to be named for security reasons. It looks like they’re feeling it. ” He believes that the ruble will be introduced according to the “scheme rolled out in the DNR” – and this requires a full-fledged collaborationist administration and the bank that works with it.

Another resident of Kherson said that there were several pharmacies in the city, fully equipped with “Crimean medicine” – apparently brought in the last two months. There are long queues in front of these pharmacies, but they are still selling them for hryvnias.

The new government is trying to put pressure on business. Mykhailo Kumok, a Melitopol businessman and main owner of the MV Holding publishing house, says that entrepreneurs are being abducted in his city: ”

They came to Kumok at the end of March. “At first I got a call and was told that three of our journalists had been taken away. I concluded that they would soon come after me – and it worked out. a lot of armed people, everything is so obvious, “he recalls.

Mykhailo and his wife and daughter were taken to the district administration building. They were divided, all gadgets were taken away and they talked in different offices.

Moral pressure was, of course, saying “you don’t want your daughter to have problems”, daughters – “you don’t want your parents to have problems”. , – the businessman tells. “They didn’t take off the balaclavas, I asked what you were afraid of, the pensioners were sitting in front of you – they answered that it was the right thing to do.”

Kumok was demanded to cooperate and even promised financial assistance if needed. He refused, was forced to sign a “not to engage in political activity” and released.

The holding closed the Melitopol Information website and stopped printing the newspaper – “our printing equipment has failed and it is unlikely to be repaired by the end of the occupation,” says Kumok.

This did not prevent the new government from releasing a fake issue of Melitopol Information. “I was holding one, we haven’t seen such shit even in the worst of times,” says Kumok. “Four pages of bad black print, but it looks like our logo is worth it.”

On the cover of the first issue – a portrait of the “mayor” Galina Danilchenko, inside her interview, among the “useful addresses” – the addresses of the military commandant’s office and the “military-civil administration”.

Some of the abducted businessmen are returning and, as Kumok says, “they are being forced to sit quietly or leave,” some have not yet been found. The abductions are in all areas occupied by the Russian military.

For example, businessman Oleksiy Postol, who has been distributing food since the end of February, was abducted in the Kherson region. we are safe with her. ” Currently, the post has been removed, and the businessman has left Kherson and continues to engage in humanitarian aid.

Plans for the next economic move may have been revealed in the Melitopol Civil-Military Administration, created in early March, when the term “civil-military administration” was almost never used.

It has only 16 subscribers and several posts, the first of which, presented on March 9, is a detailed program of “comprehensive financial and economic measures for economic development of the regions of Ukraine controlled by the Russian Federation.”

The program is written in complex bureaucratic language and is generally similar to other similar documents of the Russian authorities. It was published in a newspaper published by the Melitopol occupation authorities in the city under the headline of the local Melitopol Information.

In addition, some of its provisions were published on March 4 in his telegram channel by Volodymyr Rohov. He is a native of Zaporizhia, was an activist of the Anti-Maidan in 2014, but then went to Moscow. Rogov runs a channel dedicated to the war, where he calls himself a “member of the main council of the military-civil administration of the Zaporozhye region.” Rogov did not answer a BBC question.

The program, presented in the channel “Military-Civil Administration of Melitopol”, proposes to transfer payments for gas to the population and industrial consumers in rubles, write off all debts on loans, reduce utility prices to the border regions of Russia, release all victims of tax shelling , and the payment for the birth of a child to set at as much as 93,570 rubles – not hryvnia. The figure, if it is real, is more than five times higher than similar payments in Moscow.

The measures of “social protection” include cash payments and benefits for participants of election commissions. Such a measure, if indeed planned, may be needed if the Russian government tries to hold referendums in both Crimea and the self-proclaimed “DPR” and “LPR” in 2014.

“There is constant information about the referendum,” said a Kherson-based humanitarian aid worker. “Communal workers are being forced to clean up the city. we can’t, and so we feed 400 people a day. Against the background of crowds behind the humanities they shoot video that in Kherson at last quiet life, the city is cleaned, the Russian military feeds the population “.

In March and April, residents of Berdyansk, Kherson, Melitopol, and Kakhovka rallied against the Russian occupation. Eyewitnesses heard gunshots at a rally in Kherson in early April, but it is not clear where they fired – in the air or in the crowd.

BBC interlocutors in these cities say that anti-occupation rallies are now virtually non-existent. The last rally in Kherson was on April 10, according to a local businessman who asked not to be named for security reasons. Twenty-five people came to the monument to Taras Shevchenko. they will not part. ”

“I was at all the rallies from the very beginning,” said a woman from Berdyansk, who asked not to be named for security reasons. “But in early April, it was very scary. if before the military did not behave so noticeably, now they can stop on the street and check the phone, my husband was once searched three times in twenty minutes from our house to my father’s. ”

The woman talks about kidnappings, citing the example of her neighbor, a former Ukrainian soldier and participant in hostilities in eastern Ukraine in 2014-15. According to her, he was detained severely – the door was knocked out and literally taken out of the apartment with a black bag on his head. “We jumped on the noise – everyone was pushed back to the apartments, I was personally stabbed so that I could not breathe,” she said.

Another resident of Kherson says that only “people who do not live at home” take part in a few rallies and hide from acquaintances, because protesters are detained not only at rallies, but also afterwards, at home.

This happened in Melitopol with the chairman of the local district council. On March 12, Serhiy Priyma took part in a rally demanding the release of the previously detained mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov. The next day, 10 people came to the Reception House with weapons, searched the apartment and took him with a black bag on his head.

Vlad Priyma, Serhiy’s son, said that since March 13, his mother has been walking in a circle “military commandant’s office – former terrorist defense building – former mayor’s office – former police department.” These buildings now house the military, but they are not officially marked.

After Natalia Priyma wrote daily statements about her husband’s abduction for two weeks, she managed to get to the military commandant of Melitopol. The name of this man is not known in the city, he did not introduce himself to her. According to Vlad Priyma, the military commander told his mother that Serhiy Priyma was taken away not by the military, but by “people above”. Authorities suggest that it is the FSB.

The family also tried to talk to the civilian authorities, including Serhiy Priyma’s former deputy, Andriy Sytuga, who now works in his place. He said her husband made the “wrong choice” but promised to try to help find him.

Vlad Priyma says he doesn’t really believe in it, “because the civilians in Melitopol don’t decide anything, they were just put on foot as pawns.” Situga did not answer a BBC call. Judging by the telegram channels, which count the missing residents in the occupied territories, their number is already in the hundreds.

According to BBC interlocutors, there are those who openly support the new government. “There are not enough young people in Kherson, it is a city of pensioners,” says the Kherson businessman. ) their formation is satisfied.

I heard talk “for the new government – well, here (the Russians) came, the central government will come, the locals, the oligarchs, a neighbor in the” BMW “, which is mad … Paternalistic thinking that they will come and decide everything!”

There are those who do not care what kind of government: they just want it all over, says a resident of Berdyansk. “And those who are against are very afraid. If you know that people with weapons will come to you after any performance, you will not perform,” she added.

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