U.S. officials say a trio of assassination attempts targeting pro-Russian officials over the past two weeks suggest a growing resistance movement against pro-Russian authorities occupying parts of southern Ukraine. While so far there are only a few isolated incidents in the city of Kherson, U.S. officials say the resistance could turn into a broader counterinsurgency that would pose a major challenge to Russia’s ability to control territory recently. captured in Ukraine.
The Kremlin “faces growing partisan activity in southern Ukraine,” national intelligence director Avril Haines said during a conference in Washington, DC, last week.
A young couple passes by a Russian soldier guarding an area in Glory Alley in Kherson. (AP)
The U.S. believes Russia does not have enough forces in Kherson to effectively occupy and control the region, a U.S. official said, especially after pulling forces out of the area for fighting east of Donbas. Another U.S. official told CNN that the measure could have provided Ukrainian supporters a window to attack locally installed Russian officials.
Ukraine has also carried out limited counterattacks near Kherson, taking even more Russian forces.
The region is key to Russia’s control of the Black Sea coast of Ukraine and controls access to the Crimean peninsula. It is not clear how many Russian forces there are in or near Kherson, but an occupation against a hostile local population requires many more soldiers than a peaceful occupation of the territory.
Russia’s leaders have prioritized the military campaign at the expense of any resemblance to government.
“It’s clearly not something they can invest in right now,” a U.S. official said.
Trio of assassination attempts
The first attack in Kherson took place on June 16, when an explosion shattered the windows of a white Audi Q7 SUV. The vehicle was severely damaged, but the target of the attack survived.
Eugene Sobolev, the pro-Russian head of the prison service in occupied Kherson, was hospitalized after the attack, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
Less than a week later, a second pro-Russian official in Kherson was attacked. This time, the attack was successful.
On June 24, Dmitry Savluchenko, the pro-Russian official in charge of the Kherson region’s Department of Youth and Sports, was assassinated, RIA Novosti reported.
Serhii Khlan, an adviser to the head of the Ukrainian civilian military administration in Kherson, called Savluchenko a “traitor” and said he had been blown up in his car.
Khlan proclaimed, “Our supporters have another victory.”
The Russian invasion is still raging after four months. (AP)
On Tuesday, the car of a third pro-Russian official was set on fire in Kherson, according to Russian state news agency Tass, although the official was not injured. It is unclear who committed the attacks.
There does not appear to be any central command to guide an organized resistance, officials said, but attacks have increased in frequency, especially in the Kherson region, which Russia occupied in March at the start of its invasion.
A source familiar with Western intelligence was more skeptical about whether resistance could develop from partisan attacks to a more organized campaign capable of handling attacks and supplying weapons and instructions.
So far, the resistance has not affected Russia’s control over Kherson, the source familiar with Western intelligence stressed.
But in the long run, the US assesses that Russia will face a counterinsurgency of the local Ukrainian population.
“I think Russia will have major challenges in trying to establish any kind of stable administration for these regions, because the likely collaborators, the most prominent, will be assassinated and others will live in fear,” said Michael Kofman, director. for Russian studies at the Center for Naval Analyzes, a Washington-based think tank.
It was a normal day in the shops
Hindering the Russian government
On Tuesday, Russian-appointed authorities in the Kherson region arrested the city’s elected Ukrainian mayor, Ihor Kolykhaiev, hours before announcing plans for a referendum to join Russia. The pro-Russian military-civilian administration accused Kolykhaiev of encouraging people to “believe in the return of neo-Nazism.”
Kolykhaeiv’s adviser said Russian authorities had also confiscated computer hard drives, looted safes and searched documents. Earlier this month, the Ukrainian army said the “invaders” had broken into Kherson State University and kidnapped the rector.
Russian forces have gradually instituted the ruble as a local currency and have issued Russian passports.
Children walk between buildings destroyed during the fighting in Mariupol, in territory under the rule of the Prussian People’s Republic of Donetsk. (AP)
In Mariupol, pro-Russian authorities celebrated the so-called “liberation” of the city in May. The Donetsk People’s Republic, aligned with Russia, changed the traffic signs from Ukrainian to Russian and installed a statue of an elderly woman holding a Soviet flag. Meanwhile, the iconic Mariupol sign painted in Ukrainian colors was repainted in Russian colors.
Despite Russia’s efforts to eliminate Ukrainian history, ethnicity, and nationalism from Kherson and other occupied territories, the Ukrainian population shows a willingness to resist.
“Local occupants and collaborators are making increasingly loud statements [the] The Kherson region joins Russia, “a Ukrainian official said last week,” but more and more Ukrainian flags and inscriptions appear in the city. “
Attempts to forcibly erase Ukrainian culture and dictate Russian hegemony have had the opposite effect in some cases, according to a senior NATO official.
“There have been reports of assassination attempts against some of the quislings that have been set up to be governors, mayors [and] business leaders, “the NATO official said. A quisling is a traitor collaborating with an enemy force, named after a Norwegian World War II officer who collaborated with the Nazis.
“This has almost certainly deterred Russian sympathizers or Russians or anyone who wants to take them there to take up these positions in the first place.”
As an occupation force in Kherson, in particular, which seems determined to maintain control, Russia must provide basic services to the territories it manages, such as clean water and garbage collection. But the U.S. assesses that acts of resistance are hampering the provision of government and basic services, said one U.S. official.
The U.S. knew there was a “serious resistance network” within Ukraine that could take over if and when the military had failed, the official said. Prior to the invasion, the U.S. predicted that the insurgency would arise, along with guerrilla warfare, after a brief period of intense fighting in which Russia prevailed. But the war has been dragging on for months, and many analysts predict a much longer conflict.
Local residents are standing next to a damaged residential building in the town of Serhiivka, located about 50 kilometers southwest of Odessa. (AP)
A senior US official warned a Russian counterpart before the conflict that they would face an insurrection if they invaded Ukraine and tried to occupy territory, the official said. But the warning fell on deaf ears and the invasion continued, driven in part by arrogance and misunderstanding.
Russia believed that its forces would be welcomed with open arms and crush any resistance quickly, erroneous fantasies that quickly collapsed but did little to change the calculations of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Kofman says it is unclear what kind of government framework Russia will try to create to exercise control, but there is no doubt that it intends to retain territories. After facing prolonged and bloody uprisings in Afghanistan and Chechnya, the Kremlin knew how to anticipate another possible insurgency in Ukraine.
“They saw it coming,” Kofman said.
“That’s why they set up filtration camps and sent a lot of population out of the occupied areas.”