The reporter, who works for the newspaper Melitopolski Vedomosti (MV), was loaded into a minivan and quickly taken to her own empty newsroom, which had been occupied by Russian forces. In a surreal scene, she said she was sitting in her author’s office and was interrogated for five hours. I was told, something like, “A new life begins here, and you will probably be interested in participating in building this new life.” Not to sit somewhere on the sidelines, but to be in the center. We are giving you the opportunity to work. “We need objective people who can write to document this new life,” Olkhovska told CNN in a recent telephone interview. When the journalist clarified that she would not cooperate, the Russians – one of whom had introduced himself as a member of the new politico-military administration – responded calmly. “They said they understood that I was scared, a little confused and did not ask for an immediate answer from me. “They offered to let me think a little more,” he recalls. One week after her release, Olkhovska is still anxiously waiting to knock on her door. After she and several of her colleagues at MV – among the most prominent news agencies in the city of 150,000 – were abducted, the general manager of the media company decided to stop publishing in print and online. It is a move that other major media outlets in the region have been forced to make as they weigh the impossible choice between protecting their people and reporting the threat they and other citizens now face. Access to some sites has simply been blocked. Their coverage has been replaced by Russian propaganda, which is broadcast on local television towers, radio stations and Telegram channels. Following the abduction of the mayor of Melitopolis on March 11, the pro-Russian politician who replaced him, Galina Danilchenko, issued the following statement: “Our main task is to adapt all mechanisms to the new reality in order to start living in a new way. as soon as possible. “ Orwell’s message was one of the first, creepy signs of the next phase of the Russian war: Occupation. It is characterized by kidnappings of local officials, the appointment of virtual advisers and the recruitment of collaborators to create a climate of chaos and fear. This post-invasion manual, used in 2014 by Russian President Vladimir Putin to annex Crimea, also in Donetsk and Luhansk – two Ukrainian regions where pro-Russian separatists terrorized sections of the local population and established regimes – it’s not working this time either.
“Many regular people are arrested. We do not even know all the names. Because people are scared and do not turn to the media to report the abduction of their loved ones.” Julia Olhowska In Melitopolis, Kherson and other areas now under Russian control, Ukrainians retaliate, taking to the streets in protest, sounding the alarm about arbitrary detentions and misinformation, and wiping out . They also highlighted a dark reality for Putin, who believed he would win this war quickly: Even if he triumphs on the battlefield, maintaining gains is far less certain. The Ukrainians who rallied in a pro-democracy revolution in 2014 have hardened against Russia for the past eight years and show no signs of retreating. But those who resist the Russian occupation are paying an incredibly hefty price. “Many active people, such as volunteers, have changed their place of residence because it is very dangerous to be at home. Their addresses quickly became known to the conquerors and they came to their homes. They are wanted, abducted. “Some are being released like me, soon after interrogation, and some are being held for a long time,” Olkhovska said. “Many regular people are arrested. We do not even know all the names. Because people are scared and do not turn to the media to report the abduction of their loved ones.”

“I’m afraid to go out”

Hersonissos, on the Dnieper River near the Black Sea, was one of the first major cities to fall to Russian invading forces on March 2. to challenge their new power. On March 22, Oksana went there with her husband Dmitry Afanasyev, a Khersbelny Kherson regional council member, and their adult daughter to take part in a pro-Ukrainian demonstration. But the rally quickly fell into disarray, with the Russians firing rubber bullets and using tear gas to disperse the crowds. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russian forces of firing on unarmed people, protesting peacefully in Kherson. “Russian soldiers do not even know what it is like to be free,” he said. Following the outbreak of violence, the Afanasyev family quickly left the scene and were on a side street when Oksana said that Russian soldiers in a minibus came up to them and tried to grab her. Dmitry, who is a famous Ukrainian taekwondo athlete and national team coach, was kicked in the face, but somehow managed to escape them. At their home a few hours later, around 6 p.m., taking care of her husband’s swollen, bloodied face, Oksana said dozens of Russians dressed in military uniforms were wrapped outside in several trucks. They raided Afanashev’s house, found Dmitry’s documents, the council’s identity card and goods from his European Solidarity party before dragging him out the door. She said the Russians returned the next day to look for their home again, promising to leave her husband that night. But almost a week later, it is still ignored. In the days following his abduction, Oksana went to a local hospital and jail to try to reconcile what had happened to her husband. Now she stays at home and waits for any news from her phone. “I’m afraid for my life and I’m just afraid to go out,” he told CNN. The United Nations Human Rights Watch’s mission in Ukraine told CNN on Monday that it had recorded at least 45 cases of disappearances and detentions since the start of the war by local officials, activists, journalists and civilians. Some were detained during protests against the Russian invasion or because they openly expressed support for Ukraine, a mission spokesman said. A handful were subsequently released, the spokesman said, though the exact numbers are still being verified by the mission.
Families are often deprived of any information about the fate of detainees. And most are too terrified to talk about the disappearance of their relatives, fearing that it might provoke reactions against them or their loved ones.
“Those who are in the occupied territories, they [the Russians] try to scare them with this terror against local activists, local officials, city councilors and mayors. “It’s a terror campaign, trying to suppress people who are moving against the occupation,” said Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksiy Honcharenko, a member of Dmitry’s European Solidarity party, in an interview with CNN about his colleague’s detention. On the night of Dmitry’s disappearance, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk said in a televised speech that the Russians involved in the abduction and torture of Ukrainians would be held accountable for their crimes. “In the last few days I have received many messages from people who managed to escape from the captors’ captivity. They report mass cases of torture of detainees. “I would like to emphasize publicly that we will find every Russian soldier and every accomplice who commits war crimes and bring them to justice in The Hague and other courts,” he said. “Do not think that we do not know your surnames.”

Interrogations, beatings and threats

At the Lviv International Media Center, housed in a renovated beer bar, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Ukrainian Institute of Mass Media document cases of arbitrary detention for submission to the International Criminal Court. Recently, they published the creepy anonymous story of a Ukrainian journalist working for Radio France, who says that he was tortured by Russian soldiers with a knife and electricity, beaten with steel rods and deprived of food. “To be abducted, to be tortured because it showed the situation in the de facto occupied territories of Ukraine, such as Kherson and other areas. It is simply the Russian freedom of Press 101. It is an extension of what they are already doing in Russia.” RSF spokesman Alexander Query, who is also a Kyiv Independent reporter, told CNN in an interview with the center.
Oleh Baturin, a journalist from the Kherson area, was released on March 20, eight days after his disappearance. Speaking to CNN from his home, the Novyi Den reporter said he was abducted at a bus station in the port city of Kakhovka where he had promised to meet a trusted activist source. The source, a former Ukrainian soldier involved in local anti-occupation protests, contacted him – after telling the Telegram that he was worried that the Russians were looking for him – and said he wanted to meet. “Interrogations, beatings, threats lasted about two hours on the first day … Then there was purely psychological pressure. And interrogations every day.” Baturin Baturin agreed, but something about the call did not look good. “I felt anxious that day. I shared this anxiety with my family … and when I left home, I told them I was going there, just to meet this person. I would be back in 20 minutes,” he recalls. At the station, he said he was scanned by a group of Russians, who dragged him on a minibus and took him to …