Ukraine War: “The Russians even try to ban our holidays”

“The Russians are trying to ban everything Ukrainian here: language, as well as traditions. Even Ukrainian holidays are forbidden.”

It is the grief and the fear of a rare voice from Ukraine – the one of someone living in one of the occupied Russian areas of the country. We call her Maria.

As the United States is making efforts to negotiate peace in Ukraine, those living under Russian occupation face a brutal, repressive future.

The Kremlin has already created severe restrictions designed to reject Ukrainian identity, including severe penalties for anyone who dared not agree.

Now there are fears that Kiev could be forced to abandon at least part of the territory occupied by Russia as part of a potential transaction to terminate or peace.

Ukrainian officials reject this, but Moscow says that the less wants to completely capture four Ukrainian regions, which he partly controls – Donetsk, Luhansk, Herson and Proceria – in addition to Crimea, which annexed in 2014.

Due to the repression of the Russian authorities, the speaking of the media and even your own relatives in occupied territories can be filled with danger.

The Kremlin also launched a wide -ranging campaign to force Ukrainians in occupied territories to take Russian passports. Evidence suggests The fact that Ukrainians give up healthcare and free movement unless they take on Russian citizenship.

Maria (not her real name) said she was a member of a fully female underground resistance group, a leading campaign for peaceful resistance in these territories, mainly by distributing leaflets and ballots.

In an interview with the BBC program, she uses a Ukrainian saying to describe the danger she faces: “You have fear in your eyes, but your hands are still doing it. Of course it's scary.”

The BBC cannot reveal its real name or location so that it does not put it in danger.

The atmosphere of fear and suspicion is such that when I tried to contact residents of occupied Maripol, I was accused of being a Russian journalist.

“You will not like what I have to say. People like you kill if you tell them the truth,” one man told me through a direct message on social media. They claimed to be from the port city captured by the Russians in May 2022 after a bloody siege, which left it in ruins.

I later asked some Ukrainian friends if I could talk to their relatives living in occupied areas. Everyone said no – that would be too dangerous.

Sofia (also not its real name) is from a village in the southern region of Ukraine. He was busy at the beginning of the full -scale invasion of 2022.

Sofia is already in the UK, but her parents are still in her village and she told me about the care she should take when she talked to them.

“About a year ago, my parents were searched by the (Russian security service) FSB. They confiscated their phones, accusing them of telling the Ukrainian army of where the Russian troops were located. This is not true, but later the Russian military told my parents that they were reported by their neighbors. That is why I was not trying not to provoke something.”

“I have to read between the lines when they tell me what is happening.”

And just talking to them is getting more difficult. Sofia says her parents are not even able to supplement their mobile phones or provide their car because they refuse to take Russian passports.

“It becomes a really uncomfortable living without Russian identification numbers,” she says.

Jeva, whose name we have also changed, has a sister working in the occupied Russian nuclear power plant Zaporizzhia.

“Every time we move from our time or children to our objects, its tone changes,” Jeva says. “She tells me,” You don't understand! “

“What I understand is that as a nuclear power plant, her phone is likely to be chatty,” Jeva tells me. She also says that her sister often repeats pro -Russian stories when talking to her.

Another friend Catherine tells me that someone she knows in the occupied part of the Herson region has been thrown into a cellar for punishment for conversations with her brother, who helped the Ukrainian army. “I can't put them at risk,” Katerina told me when I wanted to contact her friend.

According to Maria, Russian administrations install surveillance systems to monitor any disagreement. “They put a lot of CCTV cameras to control everyone, to find all the activists,” she says.

Numerous Ukrainian activists have been killed or disappeared under Russian occupation. According to the Ukrainian Right Group ZminaAt least 121 activists, volunteers and journalists were killed during the full -scale invasion, most of them during their first year.

Prior to the invasion, Russia had drawn up lists of activists to be arrested or killed, the group says.

Recently applied, installed by Russia multiple repressive laws against disagree. They can be punished for alleged crimes such as the spread of “false information”, “discrediting” the Russian army or supporting “extremism”.

In Crimea alone, 1279 cases have been started on charges of “discredit” of Russian armed forces, says the Ukrainian Government Service for CrimeaS According to him, 224 people were imprisoned in the occupied Ukrainian region to express disagreement, most of them members of the root Crimean Tatar community.

Despite the dangers, a number of underground resistance groups are active in busy parts of Ukraine.

Zla Mavka, which bears its name from Ukrainian mythical creature, is a non-violent movement of all women, focused mainly on distribution of posters and leaflets in busy regions.

In Melitopol, the Saporjj region, the guerrillas are directed to occupation troops and their transport, while the Crimean Tatar Group Atesh has participated in intelligence and undercuttingS

Meanwhile, the movement of the yellow lane distributes Ukrainian symbols into occupied territories.

Due to the lack of independent media in busy parts of Ukraine, it is difficult to check the impact of such activities. However, there is no evidence to suggest that they have caused significant interference with the occupation forces.

Maria says entire streets are lined with Russian propaganda.

“In the city centers, everything is covered with Russian propaganda: billboards with Putin's face, Putin's quotes, people who call heroes from the special military operation. There are flags everywhere,” she told the BBC.

The Kremlin banned Ukrainian and independent media, including the BBC, and propagandists were sent from Russia to create friendly media in the occupied territories. After many professional journalists escaped, they were forced to hire local teens to spread Moscow's stories.

The pro -Russian propaganda begins early at school, where children are forced to attend classes that glorify the Russian army and join quasi -group groups such as Yunarmia (Youth Army).

A Russian textbook even justifies the invasion of Ukraine, presenting it falsely as an aggressive state governed by nationalist extremists and manipulated by the West.