Recent attacks on pro-Russian authorities demonstrate growing resistance

• Russian sovereignty over the Black Sea coast of Ukraine depend on Kherson.
• US officials fear resistance might develop into a larger counterinsurgency.
• Russian attempts to eradicate Ukrainian nationalism, history, and ethnicity from Kherson.

A growing resistance movement against pro-Russian authorities holding sections of southern Ukraine, according to US sources, is suggested by three murder attempts against pro-Russian leaders over the course of the past two weeks.

Although there have only been a few isolated instances in the town of Kherson so far, US officials fear the resistance might develop into a larger counterinsurgency, which would make it much more difficult for Russia to maintain control over freshly seized area across Ukraine.
At a conference in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, director of national intelligence Avril Haines stated that the Kremlin “faces escalating partisan activity in southern Ukraine.”

One US official claimed that, especially after removing troops from the area for the conflict in Donbas to the east, the US feels that Russia does not have sufficient soldiers in Kherson to properly occupy and govern the territory. An further US official told CNN that action might have given Ukrainian partisans a chance to strike regionally placed Russian officials.

Additionally, Ukraine has launched sporadic counterattacks close to Kherson, severely taxing Russian forces.

Russian sovereignty over the Black Sea coast of Ukraine and access to the Crimean Peninsula depend on this area. Uncertainty surrounds the size of the Russian presence in or around Kherson, but an occupation against a hostile local populace calls for a much larger force than a friendly takeover.

The military campaign has taken precedence above any kind of government in the eyes of the Russian leadership. One US official stated, “It’s obvious they can’t invest in it right now.”

On June 16, an explosion that broke the windows of a white Audi Q7 SUV was the first strike in Kherson. The attack’s intended victim survived, although the vehicle was severely damaged.

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According to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, Eugeniy Sobolev, the pro-Russian chief of the jail service in occupied Kherson, was hospitalised following the attack.

A second pro-Russian official in Kherson was attacked less than a week later. This time, the assault was successful. According to RIA Novosti, the pro-Russian official in charge of the Department of Youth and Sports for the Kherson region, Dmitry Savluchenko, was assassinated on June 24. A Kherson Civil Military government adviser named Serhii Khlan referred to Savluchenko as a “traitor” and said that Savluchenko had been killed in a car bombing. “Our partisans have won again,” Khlan exclaimed.

According to Russian state news outlet Tass, a third pro-Russian politician’s vehicle was burned in Kherson on Tuesday, although the official escaped unharmed. Who carried out the attacks is unknown.

The attacks have been more frequent, notably in the Kherson region, which Russia took in March at the start of its invasion, but there does not appear to be a central command directing an organised response, according to officials.

A source familiar with Western intelligence expressed greater scepticism about whether the opposition could evolve from partisan attacks to a more coordinated operation that could coordinate the attacks, provide weapons and orders, and manage the attacks.

The individual who is familiar with Western information highlighted that so far, the opposition has not compromised Russia’s hold on Kherson.

The US believes that in the long run, however, the local Ukrainian population will mount a counterinsurgency against Russia.

Because more prominent collaborators are likely to be killed and others will live in fear, Michael Kofman, director for Russia studies at the Center for Naval Analyses, a Washington-based think tank, believes that Russia will face significant difficulties in trying to establish any sort of stable administration for these regions.

Ihor Kolykhaiev, the city’s elected Ukrainian mayor, was detained on Tuesday in the Kherson region by Russian-appointed authorities just hours before he was scheduled to announce plans for a referendum on joining Russia.

Kolykhaiev was charged with inciting people to “believe in the return of neo-Nazism” by the pro-Russian military-civilian administration.

According to Kolykhaeiv’s advisor, Russian authorities also raided safes, searched for documents, and took computer hard drives. The rector of Kherson State University was taken hostage earlier this month, according to the Ukrainian military.
Russian passports have been distributed, and the ruble has progressively replaced the indigenous currency.

Pro-Russian authorities in Mariupol celebrated the purported “liberation” of the city in May. Road signs in the Russian-aligned Donetsk People’s Republic were changed from Ukrainian to Russian, and a statue of an elderly woman holding a Soviet flag was erected. In the meantime, the recognisable Mariupol sign in Ukrainian colours was repainted in Russian hues.

Russian attempts to eradicate Ukrainian nationalism, history, and ethnicity from Kherson and other occupied territories have met with resistance from the local populace of Ukraine.

A Ukrainian official claimed last week that “every day, more and more Ukrainian flags and inscriptions appear in the city” despite the louder claims being made by the occupiers and their local allies about the Kherson region joining Russia.

A senior NATO officer claims that in some instances, the efforts to violently eradicate Ukrainian culture and impose a Russian hegemony have had the opposite impact.

The NATO officer stated that murder attempts had been made against some of the ‘quislings’ who had been appointed as governors, mayors, and business executives. Named after a Norwegian official who aided the Nazis during World War II, a quisling is a traitor who works with an opposing force. That has almost certainly prevented Russians or Russian-sympathizers or anybody else they plan to bring in to fill these posts from doing so in the first place.

Russia must offer fundamental services in the areas it controls, such as clean water and trash collection, as a controlling entity in Kherson, particularly one that appears determined to keep control. However, one of the US officials stated that the country’s assessment is that acts of resistance are making it impossible to provide basic services and governance.
The official claimed that the US was aware of a “major resistance network” in Ukraine that could seize control if and when the military was unable to. Before the invasion, the US predicted that an insurgency would develop along with guerilla warfare following a brief period of fierce combat in which Russia won. But even while many observers expected the war to last much longer, it has now dragged on for months.

Prior to the conflict, a top US official warned a Russian counterpart that if they invaded Ukraine and attempted to occupy land, they would encounter an insurgency. However, the warning went unheeded, and the invasion went ahead, partially due to hubris and poor information.

Erroneous dreams that immediately disintegrated but did little to alter Russian President Vladimir Putin’s calculations were Russia’s assumptions that its forces would be welcomed and would swiftly smash any resistance.

There is no doubt that Russia intends to keep the areas, but Kofman says it’s unclear what kind of governing system it will try to establish to exercise authority. The Kremlin was aware of the possibility of another insurgency in Ukraine after dealing with protracted, brutal insurgencies in Afghanistan and Chechnya.

According to Kofman, “they did see it coming.” That is the reason they established filtration camps and transported a sizable portion of the populace out of the places they had taken over.

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