Putin's Russification Ramps Up, 100 Days Into The War

Moscow is not just seizing Ukrainian land but also carrying out a change of identity in the country, reports Bel Trew

- Bel Trew

For the first few days after the Russian soldiers rolled into the Ukrainian city of Berdyansk, Katya, 34, stubbornly joined the demonstrations against the invaders every day.

The southeastern port city - like many along the Azov Sea - was largely Russian-speaking before the war. But despite this, as the soldiers marched in, men, women and teenagers gathered in central streets and squares chanting that the Russian occupiers should "go home".

Around them, armoured cars scrawled with the letter Z crawled across town, while soldiers took over all the main administrative buildings. The radio station, occupied by Moscow's men, began blaring President Putin's propaganda.

Residents were determined to stand their ground until people started to disappear.

"From day one they pointed guns at us as we gathered but then they started applying more force gradually," Katya says, clutching her 8-year-old daughter Sophia just moments after having successfully fled the occupied town. "The first week and a half was military police, then actual soldiers, then they started shooting in the air, handcuffing and taking people away."

She says she finally gave up on the rallies when two of her friends were kidnapped. Rumours spread that some of the detainees were being forcibly deported to Russia.

"My friends were eventually returned a few days later, but they were broken," she recalls with a catch in her throat. "We have no idea what happened to them. I have never seen anyone so terrified. They stopped talking to us. They stopped talking at all."

Anastasia, 18 who had fled Melitopol, about 120km west of Berdyansk, also a predominantly Russian-speaking city in the Zaporizhzhia region, says she knows of two girls who joined protests and organised strikes, and also vanished.