As Kyiv stepped up efforts to recapture the key city of Kherson as part of a long-awaited counteroffensive, evidence emerged of the Kremlin’s faltering efforts to normalize life in a region it seeks to formally annex as part of Russia. Moscow last month announced it had opened its first branches of state-owned Promsvyazbank in Kherson and neighboring Zaporizhzhia regions as part of a “Russification” process that includes requiring Ukrainians to switch from using Kiev’s hryvnia currency to the Russian ruble. However, Ukrainian officials claimed on Thursday that the three bank branches are currently only able to offer partial service after locals refused to accept jobs at the company. The National Resistance Center (NRC), which coordinates the party’s activities in the occupied territories, said the problems at the bank branches in Kherson were part of a wider problem forcing the Kremlin’s puppet administration to abandon plans to accept only Russian qualifications and licenses. The NRC said: “It should be noted that the lack of workers in the occupied territories due to the reluctance of locals to cooperate forced the Russians to recognize Ukrainian qualification certificates and work [permits].”
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A charity working in Crimea, the region annexed by Moscow in 2014, and southern Ukraine earlier this month said it had evidence of a “massive” boycott by doctors in the Kherson region. Crimea SOS said doctors applied en masse for extended leave or simply quit their jobs to avoid cooperating with the Russian military, while at the same time many pharmacies in Kherson were closed, creating a black market for drugs brought in from Russia. Denny Savchenko, head of the charity, said: “Doctors in Kherson are massively refusing to cooperate with the occupiers.” Similar issues also appear to be affecting heavy industry in southern Ukraine. Ukrainian media reported last month that Russia’s efforts to reopen a large iron ore plant in Zaporizhia failed after workers refused to sign contracts offering work at 60 percent of their previous wages. In the devastated city of Mariupol, an adviser to its exiled Ukrainian mayor this week insisted that staff at a major steel plant were staging a “silent uprising”. Writing on the Telegram social networking site, Petro Andryushenko said: “At the Illich Steel and Iron Works, workers staged a silent uprising, refusing to go to [factory].” The boycotts have sparked a blame game between Moscow and Kiev over the motivation behind the refusal to work. A Moscow-appointed official in Kherson has previously claimed that many Ukrainians are staying away because of Kyiv’s threat of prosecution for anyone found collaborating with the occupation forces. Kirill Stremousov, who is deputy head of the Kremlin-backed administration in Kherson and is wanted for treason by Kyiv, claimed staff were “living in fear” of the proceedings. The official on Thursday doubled down on promises to hold a referendum on secession from Ukraine, telling Russian media: “I hope that in the near future we will already become a full territorial entity of the Russian Federation.” For its part, Ukraine has insisted that civil disobedience is motivated by contempt for the occupying forces. The NRC said: “Nonviolent resistance in the temporarily occupied territories is growing exponentially. People have mastered various methods of resistance, including a silent refusal to work in confiscated businesses.” Experts said the intensity of anti-Russian insurgency in southern Ukraine depends in part on Kiev’s potential success in seizing territory, particularly around the city of Kherson, where Ukrainian forces on Thursday managed to destroy its only road bridge city. the river Dnipro. Kyiv said the strike with the US HIMARS missile system would hamper the Kremlin’s efforts to resupply its troops, although Moscow insisted it could instead use ferry routes and a railway bridge. Professor Alexander Motyl, a Ukraine expert at Rutgers University – Newark, told i: “Resistance will be high and cooperation low if the population expects the Ukrainian armed forces to advance, as they are doing now. Increased Russian repression will increase resistance under such circumstances.” Kherson is a key strategic asset for both sides of the war, with Russia holding it as a gateway to the vital port of Odessa and Ukraine seeking to recapture it as a route to Crimea and the country’s east. Kyiv has been quietly waging a partisan campaign in occupied southern cities such as Kherson and Melitopol, targeting officials appointed by Moscow. In the latest attack, Ukraine claimed this week that it had targeted two men recruited to work for the Russian police force in the city of Kherson, killing one and injuring another in an attack on a marked police car.
