Russian Federation (RF) combat units occupying areas in Ukraine’s south are shelling civilian homes and businesses haphazardly, dragooning men into local militias, but on the battlefield are waiting passively for advancing Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) to attack, local officials and news reports said April 4.
Petro Andriushchenko, advisor to the mayor of the RF-occupied Azov Sea port of Mariupol, said in a statement that RF authorities are searching for and even stopping on the street military-age men on streets to register them in local militia. UAF forces are still holding out in Mariupol, making it likely that civilians dragooned into the local militia could be thrown into a fight against their own countrymen, almost immediately, he said.
Mayor Ivan Federov, head of the RF-occupied city of Melitopol, said during a 24-hour TV marathon that in the nearby village of Vasylivka, RF troops forced local men at gunpoint to man road checkpoints at village entrances, and begun registration of military-age men for possible militia service in areas surrounding Melitopol. Inside the city itself RF soldiers have looted homes and businesses for weeks, in particular for televisions, cash and jewelry, he said.
On Wednesday, Fedorev said, RF authorities declared a new Melitopol administration, appointed by them, would in future would run the city, with the only legal source of official information being a newspaper printed by occupation authorities.
Independent Ukrainian media outlets generally confirmed Federov’s claims, and reported the Thursday “establishment” of RF-controlled local government in the neighboring town of Enerhodar.
Vitaliy Kim, the Governor of Mykolaiv Region, said that RF forces stationed in Kherson have adopted a fully defensive stance, hiding in dugouts and bunkers as much as possible, as UAF forces approach. RF troops are making no attempts to advance, limiting their military activity to firing long-range Smerch artillery rockets, haphazardly, at Mykolaiv’s eastern suburbs, he said.
According to news reports by independent Ukrainian media and UAF official statements, lead elements of Ukrainian forces attacking south from Kryviy Rih and east from Mykolaiv are, at some locations, less than 25 km from Kherson’s outskirts.
RF forces took control of Kherson on March 2. Kherson residents have demonstrated repeatedly against the RF occupation, with RF authorities trying to suppress the demonstrations with riot control troops, warning shots and tear gas, and by imposing an occupation government on the city. The protests have not stopped.
