Kyiv, Ukraine CNN —
Russian forces have tightened their control over civilians in the occupied areas of southern Ukraine’s Kherson region, detaining locals in a bid to root out partisan resistance, the Ukrainian military said.
In the occupied city of Kherson, Russian troops are now mostly dressed in civilian clothes and living in civilian shelters because they are “strengthening internal positions to conduct street battles,” according to the Ukrainian military and a city resident who exchanged messages with CNN.
Ukrainian forces in Kherson retook a significant portion of territory that Russian forces captured shortly after the invasion began in late February. Kyiv stringed together a string of surprise victories in the region in early October, but progress has slowed as Ukrainian forces close in on the region’s capital, the city of Kherson. It seems as if a fierce battle is brewing for the city.
“Amid the counter-offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the occupiers significantly intensified filtering measures,” the National Center of Resistance, an agency of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said on Monday. “The raids on the local population in the temporarily occupied part of the Kherson region have increased. The occupiers are actively looking for the underground movement.”
The National Resistance Center said it was aware of dozens of arrests over the past few days. She called on the civilian population to leave the occupied areas “if possible” while the Ukrainian military stepped up its counter-offensive.
Kherson is one of four regions Russia has said it will annex from Ukraine in violation of international law. However, Moscow’s immediate plans for the city of Kherson are unclear. A senior Russian-backed city official, Kirill Stremousov, said on Friday that it was “under the defense of Russian soldiers.” Ukrainian officials said Russian forces are continuing to deepen their defense lines in Kherson while Ukrainian units are advancing along the west bank of the Dnipro River.
However, Stremousov said Thursday that Russian troops would “most likely” retreat from positions in the southern city, but Ukrainian officials suggested the statement could be a trap — a view echoed by military spokeswoman Natalia Humeniuk on Saturday.
“Russian troops are trying very hard to persuade everyone to withdraw, but at the same time we see objective evidence that they are staying,” Humeniuk said in an interview with Ukrainian media.
Kherson residents have reported seeing an increased military presence on the streets. A resident of the occupied city of Kherson told CNN through third parties on Sunday that Russian soldiers in occupied villages are behaving more aggressively towards civilians.
“On the west bank, near Snihurivka, there are cases of occupiers moving into local people’s houses when people move to the city,” the resident said. “Many soldiers came to the villages, they settled in empty houses. But there are cases where they throw people out of their homes.”
CNN is not identifying the Kherson resident for their safety. The city of Kherson itself was “relatively quiet,” she said.
“From time to time, automatic shots can be heard at night,” the resident said. “There is a curfew in the city and nobody goes out at night. The occupiers have created a kind of territorial defense in the city that deals with security issues.”
Checkpoints within the city itself have been removed, she said.
“There are only checkpoints at the city entrance. At the control point, they check documents and see what’s in the car. If it is public transport, the soldier will board the minibus. It can vary, it all depends on the mood of the occupiers. They can start checking phones and making men strip naked to check for tattoos.”
The resident said most of the soldiers appear to be in their 30s, but that they have started to see more young men in their 18s to 20s.
Water and electricity in the city of Kherson were temporarily cut off on Sunday after infrastructure damage was sustained there. Russian authorities said a trio of “reinforced concrete pillars of high-voltage power lines” were damaged in an attack by Ukrainian forces, while Kyiv blamed Kremlin-backed forces occupying the city. CNN cannot independently confirm or verify the details of the alleged attack or who was behind it.
The Kremlin has ramped up attacks on civilian energy infrastructure across Ukraine in recent weeks. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials have claimed that Moscow is trying to shut off electricity across the country so that Ukrainians, civilians and military, can freeze in winter.
As of Monday morning, Russian authorities in Kherson were still trying to restore power. Stremousov, the Russia-appointed deputy head of the Kherson region’s military administration, said he believed power and communications would return “in the near future”. He added that there was no problem with the food supply and although some pharmacies were closed it was “not impossible to get social benefits”.
Stremousov said authorities continued to offer “evacuation” to the east bank of the Dnipro River, now including for bedridden civilians or those with reduced mobility.
Evacuation offers like this have raised fears that Ukrainian citizens could be forced into Russian territory against their will. Early in the war, reports surfaced of tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians being forcibly sent to so-called “filtration centers” before being transferred to Russia. Moscow has condemned the claims as lies, claiming that Ukraine has hampered its efforts to “evacuate” people to Russia.
Serhii Khlan, a member of the Kherson regional council, said Russian forces continued to evict civilians from their homes on the east bank of the Dnipro.
Speaking to CNN, the resident of the city of Kherson viewed the idea of boarding an “evacuation bus” to Crimea as a “one-way ticket.”