Ukrainian cities like Mariupol and Cherson have been under Russian control for weeks. But the occupiers are reportedly struggling to repair war damage and set up a kind of basic state service. That’s why staff are withdrawn from home.
Large sections of the Ukrainian population are reportedly refusing to cooperate with Russian troops and officials in occupied territories. This is reported by the US think tank Institute for the Study of War, citing several Ukrainian media reports. The Kremlin is therefore forced to send additional officials and workers to cities like Mariupol in order to establish a kind of basic state service in the occupied territories.
Accordingly, the occupying forces are currently having difficulties clearing away rubble in conquered areas, reopening shops and setting up an administration. Among other things, the Russian Promsvyazbank failed to open three branches in the Kherson region because too many Ukrainians refused to work there. The banks are important for the annexation of the occupied territories to Russia. They are supposed to exchange the Ukrainian national currency hryvnia for the Russian ruble.
According to reports, a lack of collaboration is also causing difficulties in the region around the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Luhansk. According to this, Russia had to fly in doctors and other medical staff from the megacities of Novosibirsk and Volgograd because doctors refuse to treat the local population in newly occupied areas.
In order to break the resistance, the Russian troops are relying on blackmail. They are reportedly refusing to provide food and humanitarian aid in order to force the population to cooperate.
Russia is also counting on pro-Russian Ukrainians sabotaging the cohesion of the Ukrainian population in unoccupied areas. The Ukrainian military intelligence service GRU reports that the Russian troops have published a “manual on organizing resistance to the puppet government in Kyiv”. In it, pro-Russian Ukrainians are urged to sabotage work in almost all areas of society. Among other things, they are recommended to distribute particularly bad equipment, materials and goods to colleagues at work or to spend a lot of time in the toilet. In medical professions, they should therefore be particularly wasteful with medicines and dressing materials.
