[tomm]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door Jan van den Berghe

Er blijft nauwelijks nog iets over van die "plaatselijke bevolking". Van de meer dan half miljoen inwoners voor de oorlog zijn er waarschijnlijk nog een goede honderdduizend overgebleven. In hoeverre het hier gaat om Russischgezinden is niet duidelijk. Wel is het zo dat Rusland weer eens volop een kolonisatiepolitiek aan het uitwerken is en mensen uit de Russische Federatie aan het lokken is om Marioepol te russificeren. Het is dezelfde strategie die men sedert 2014 toepast op de Krim. Gewoon de Sovjetstrategie om gebieden met een bevolkingswissel te koloniseren, iets wat ook de Sovjets ook probeerden in de Baltische regio. Gelukkig wisten ze zich daar tijdig los te rukken uit de Moskovitische dwingelandij.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auZ3PcmKNts

En een youtube filmpje moet dit bewijzen?

JE vergeet ook dat uw vriendjes probeerden om Mariupol te "Oekraïniseren" door massale import van Azov, etc. en familie uit andere regio's van Oekraïne, die de appartementen innamen die verlaten waren door de pro-Russische separatisten, ten het regime de stad terug in handen nam in 2014.

Zelfs ITV kon niet anders dan besluiten dat de lokale bevolking het bloeddorstige regime haatten. Lokale inwoners smeekten Rusland om tussenbeide te komen om het bloedbad te stoppen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ5H9S2pv08

Hier zie je hoe lokale inwoners barricades aanlegden in Mariupol in 2014 om tanks te stoppen.
https://www.military.com/video/comba.../3560066174001

Denk je nu werkelijk dat die inwoners boos waren op de Russen omdat die hen, weliswaar 10 jaar later, uiteindelijk toch kwamen bevrijden? In 2014 had je nog westerse media die eerlijk over het conflict berichtten.

In 2022 draaide de propaganda machine echter op volle toeren en nog steeds. Veel beelden waren fake, bvb. wat betreft dat "hospitaal" (de "slachtoffers" spraken Oekraïens terwijl 99% van de bevolking van Mariupol Russisch spreekt), en je ziet dat het Westen veel geld uitgegeven heeft aan massale propaganda, met google zoekmachines vind je de eerste pagina's enkel anti-Russische propaganda wat 2022 betreft.

Echter, soms is de Oekraïense media nog het eerlijkst.

Pro-Russian sympathies make life harder for soldiers, cops in Kupiansk district
KUPIANSK, Kharkiv Oblast – How do you defend a town where civilians are out to get you?

Ukrainian forces in Kupiansk district are wrestling with this question regularly.
Besides the Russian military, there’s another thing that Ukrainian troops and police are being forced to contend with. According to interviews with dozens of soldiers, police officers, and civilians around Kupiansk, many of the local residents that remain are pro-Russian. Some of them are former or active collaborators of enemy troops.

"Subjectively speaking, there are many separatists here," said Yevhen Didkovskyi, a community relations officer with the 138th Battalion deployed in the area. "People who hate us on principle."

This can be deadly for the troops and the civilians who help them. Multiple soldiers told the Kyiv Independent that their living quarters were targeted in ways that suggest that someone fed coordinates to the enemy. A few soldiers quipped that people in the local marketplace are the first to know to clear out of the way when there’s something incoming.
Even when there is no active collaboration, enough locals are leery of troops for it to be an issue. Soldiers complained about being obstructed in their duties, refused aid, or charged jacked-up prices.

When asked how this all affects morale, most soldiers had something ironic to say.

“The morale fell long ago, we just got used to it,” said one of a group of soldiers in Kivsharivka, a town about 15 kilometers southwest from Kupiansk.
Kupiansk, the administrative center of the Kupiansk district, had a population of about 28,000 before the 2022 invasion, now down to just 11,000. It’s hard to say what percentage is pro-Russian. People who spoke to the Kyiv Independent had very different estimates.

Kupiansk's former mayor, Hennadiy Matsehora, infamously welcomed the Russians into his town, joining their occupation authority and aiding them with housing, transportation, and other needs, until Kupiansk was liberated in September 2022.

Didkovskyi reckons that about 50% of the current local population remains pro-Russian. The same rough numbers were cited by a group of civilians talking about their town of Kivsharivka, while cleaning up the aftermath of Russian shelling of a residential building.

Nevertheless, a Ukrainian police officer who escaped from occupied Kupiansk after being arrested and tortured by the Russians, said that close to 85% of the original pre-occupation police force turned and started working for the occupiers. These people fled to Russia when Kupiansk was liberated, according to multiple police officers.

There also appears to be a rift between some troops and some of the local police. Didkovskyi said that police obstructed him when he tried to get some casualties identified. He said the problems were mainly caused by displaced police officers from Luhansk Oblast, the easternmost Ukrainian region that is almost completely occupied by Russia.

“How it’s done is, they sign the order, assign a medical examiner, and that’s all they need to do, we can handle the rest,” he said. “We rang (the police) that we are standing near the district office, please look at the bodies, sign the order. They refused, with no reason given.”
Didkovskyi said he also runs into sullen obstructionism from community leaders. “I come to a village, go into the head’s office and go: ‘Look, I got 30 cold, wet, angry men with guns, can you just find me three empty houses for them to stay?’ He stands there for two hours like: I don’t know. What? I don’t know.”

As a result of the danger posed by collaborators, troops are spending less time in the towns and villages and more time in the countryside, in dugouts, according to a soldier with the callsign Uklon and his fellows.
Uklon and his comrades also said they were instructed to minimize conversations with locals and avoid showing locals the movement of combat vehicles.

He contrasted it to his posting in Kherson Oblast, a partially-occupied southern Ukrainian region, where the civilians were very pleasant and helpful.

Why is the district like this?

Kupiansk sits a mere 20 kilometers away from the Russian border. It is majorly affected by Russian cultural influence. Many locals had friends, family or business partners across the border and vice-versa.

Because of the imperial Russian and Soviet legacy, which suppressed the Ukrainian language and moved people around its domains, eastern regions have more connections with Russia than the majority of Ukraine does.

“People older than 40, who were born in the USSR and educated under these banners live in the past, thinking the USSR will come again and give them everything for free,” Demenko said, although collaboration suspects do come in all ages.

Didkovskyi said something similar: “Somehow it’s like they’re waiting, like someone has to give them something. To decide something for them. The Daddy Tsar.”

Russian TV and radio were widely available here throughout the previous decade of war, including the time of the full-scale invasion. In some areas, they are still available today.

On one street in Kivsharivka, a group of volunteers cleaning up the debris from a Russian munition agreed with this view. The blast gouged a big hole in the side of a residential building at ground level. These volunteers said that Kivsharivka is full of grannies and other closet sympathizers with Soviet nostalgia or gorged on Russian media.

However, many people were very reluctant to give their names. A group of soldiers just down the road explained that while most pro-Russian locals are staying very quiet, Ukrainian patriots here may want to keep their head down, to avoid being targeted, as well.
From the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 to the start of June 2023, the National Police of Ukraine launched 2,916 cases involving article 111-1 (collaboration) and 156 cases involving article 111 (high treason).

As of early June, the State Bureau of Investigation, which is responsible for cases involving law enforcement, judges, and high-ranking officials, opened 1,249 cases of high treason, 250 cases of collaboration, and 22 cases of aiding and abetting the aggressor state (article 111-2).

The sentences for collaboration range from being banned from holding public office for a number of years to spending up to 15 years behind bars, in addition to possible confiscation of property.

Police in Kupiansk said that arrests on collaboration are being made regularly. A local Telegram channel account called Marazm posts news about criminal charges and convictions related to pro-Russian activities every few days.

Police investigator Subotin said that as of last week, there were warrants out for 30 people. Known collaborators’ apartments had already been searched multiple times.

However, many collaborators who worked with the occupiers in Kupiansk district ran away shortly before liberation, police said. Right now, Ukraine is charging them in absentia. About 90% of the escapees are in Russia but some have also escaped to Europe, police said.

"Now the question of an international wanted list, announced through Interpol, is being decided," Subotin said. "So that if they're hiding in Europe, we can extradite them home.

https://kyivindependent.com/pro-russ...ansk-district/

Belgische en Nederlandse journalisten trokken ook al dezelfde conclusies in en rond Bahmut vorig jaar. (zie boven)

https://www.demorgen.be/oorlog-in-oe...tert~b4313c2d/