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Heavy fighting in Eastern Ukraine; Russians face resistance from locals

Russian invasion forces are wrecking anything they can in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Fighting continues in the southern regions of the occupied Kherson region, as the local civilian population is beginning to cause more and more trouble for the occupiers.

The East: Luhansk and Donetsk

Six people have reportedly been killed in the Luhansk region as a result of Russian bombardment throughout May 20. A total of 50 buildings were destroyed of which 23 were destroyed in Lysychansk and 16 in the neighbouring Pryvilla, including a school building. In Lysychansk the shelling caused a fire in a mine; there are reports of dead and wounded, but with no exact numbers given.

Heavy shelling is reported along the entire frontline in the Donetsk region. A school in Yelyzavetivka was hit, and heavy mortar fire was reported in Krasnohorivka. The Avdiivka coke plant, the largest of its kind in Europe, had been hit. Shells also fell on the residential areas of the town.

Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine’s Ombudsman for Human Rights, reported on Saturday that within the previous 24 hours Russian invasion forces have deported 17,306 civilians from the occupied territories into the territory of the Russian Federation or the self-proclaimed separatist “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk, including 2,213 children. This brings the total of forcibly deported Ukrainian citizens to 1,377,925 people, including 232,480 children.

Ms Denysova stresses that, in spite of the Russian side’s claims, the people are not voluntarily asking to be evacuated from the area. As Petro Andrushchenko, adviser to the mayor of the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol, says, people are forced onto buses under the guard of armed Russian troops. The buses then head towards a “filtration camp” near the village of Bezimenne, and then onwards into Russian territory. According to Ombudsman Denysova, over 32,000 people have already passed through the Bezimenne camp.

The South: Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Mykolaiv

Fighting continues in the Kherson Region, the only region whose capital, with 280,000 residents, has been successfully occupied since the start of the invasion. Explosions were heard throughout practically the entire area of the region. Reportedly the occupied cities and towns are facing a humanitarian crisis.

According to Vladyslav Nazarov, the spokesman for the Southern Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Russians are preventing civilians from evacuating towards Ukrainian controlled territories. “Having no other fighting options, the occupiers have blocked the possibility to leave the Kherson Region in the direction of territories controlled by the Ukrainian authorities and are trying to direct all those willing to leave to Crimea as the only possible direction,” Nazarov told the “Ukrayinska Pravda” newspaper. The newspaper however also reported that the Russian invaders have allowed some 1,000 cars to pass through their checkpoint in the town of Vasylivka, Zaporizhzhya Region.

According to the English-language Ukrainian media outlet, “The Kyiv Independent”, the Russian-installed governor of the Kherson Region, Volodymyr Saldo, Kherson is soon to become part of Russia. “We see the Russian Federation as our own country,” Volodymyr Saldo said, adding the new budget of the Kherson Region has been approved in Russian rubles.

According to Ukrainian Ombudsman Lyudmyla Denysova, the Russian occupier may attempt to establish temporary administrations in the occupied areas in order to facilitate their later annexation into the Russian Federation. The State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, is working on a bill that would expand the presidential powers of Vladimir Putin to include creating temporary administrations OUTSIDE the borders of the Russian Federation. “The occupiers plan to create temporary administrations in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Regions. The preparations for this step have already begun.

Reports of a planned illegal referendum have already surfaced back in April. But according to Ms Denysova, the attempts to organise the sham vote have been thwarted by the resistance of the local population, and Russia began to think of other ways to claim formal control over the area. Earlier this month, on May 9, Hanna Malyar, Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defence, announced that the referendum did not take place thanks to the actions successfully undertaken by Ukrainian armed forces and special services.

The resistance among the population of the occupied territories is causing a lot of headaches for the occupiers. Spokesman Nazarov reported that the spontaneously organised celebrations of the “Vyshyvanka Day” (vyshyvanka is an embroidered shirt, a traditional Ukrainian folk garb), in spite of the pressure from the occupation authorities. The Russians had to increase the number of patrols and checkpoints.

The resistance of the Ukrainians who found themselves under the occupation of Russian aggressors is not limited to wearing fancy shirts, however. Someone has plastered posters depicting Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the collaborationist military-civil administration established by the Russians in the Kherson Oblast.

Resistance News:

The traitor #Stremousov is becoming a very popular figure in #Kherson.

The poster reads – #Kherson is #Ukraine! We are coming for you!

Glory to #Ukraine ✊??? pic.twitter.com/uEYxvkCp25

— Canadian Ukrainian Volunteer ????✊? (@CanadianUkrain1) May 19, 2022

Stremousov, a Ukrainian citizen, has spoken in favour of the annexation of the Kerson Region into the Russian Federation.

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