The Kremlin is mobilizing Russian police and attempting to convince Ukrainian law enforcers to join to stamp out public resistance to Russian Federation (RF) military occupation of cities and villages in southern Ukraine, the news magazine Ukrainska Pravda wrote on Saturday., March 26.
In Melitopol, the article said, RF authorities and city officials collaborating with them have published a city ordnance designating the display of the Ukrainian flag, or public challenge to RF authority, a “Fascist act” subject to prosecution and severe jail sentences.
A town of more than 150,000, Melitopol was overrun by RF troops on the second day of the war. Since then local residents have turned out repeatedly to demonstrate against the Kremlin’s attack, and in support of Ukrainian independence.
A Saturday statement from the Zaporizhia military administration said Journalists working in the region are subject to regular threats, both official and anonymous, demanding they cease making public independently-source news and instead report only on subjects and developments sanctioned by local authorities. Reporters reporting accurately on developments in occupied regions face a real danger of prosecution by RF authorities on terrorism charges, the statement said.
In Melitopol, RF authorities are going from apartment complex to apartment complex, gathering residents, and demanding they inform authorities of “Fascists” living among them, the statement said.
A Friday statement by Ukraine’s Army General Staff said that, according to its intelligence sources, authorities in the RF’s Kuban region and in occupied Crimea are beefing up police units with reservists and new hires, in order to send them to occupied southern Ukraine, to suppress opposition.
Public resistance to RF rule, most often in the form of peaceful demonstrations by civilians, has taken place most often in the southern localities Berdyansk, Kyrillivka, Kherson and Melitopol.
According to the Zaporizhia regional command statement, in occupied Berdyansk authorities have detained or arrested city workers thought to harbor anti-RF opinions, even though they help operate critical civilian infrastructure like power plants or water utilities.
