The resistance to Russian occupation of Kherson

 Telegraph:

No one embodies the extraordinary story of Kherson quite like Alexei.

When the Russians invaded his hometown, he worked under the cover of darkness, risking his life tracking the soldiers and officials setting up their hated government.

Three months later, he staged a dramatic escape across the front line to join the Ukrainian army, returning last week as a liberator in a lightning counter-attack.

Back for good, he is now hunting down and weeding out hidden Russian soldiers and the local collaborators who helped rule Kherson with an iron fist.

“There are constant tears in my eyes,” he told The Telegraph as he moved through Kherson on his mission to rid the city of Vladimir Putin’s forces once and for all.

“I’ve never had feelings like this, but it needs to be felt,” Alexei added, reflecting on the atrocities committed here under occupation.

“Hearing the horrors they [Kherson residents] faced is crazy motivation to work to the end and round everyone who is guilty up. The cleansing of the city will continue for weeks.”

Despite the relief and jubilation that followed the city’s liberation, Alexei believed that “hundreds” of people who worked to help Russia are now hiding in plain sight.

The work of Alexei, and other hunters like him, has already borne fruit.

Images have emerged from the city of suspected collaborators captured by Ukrainian forces, their hands bound and their heads covered with makeshift blindfolds with the words “looter” and “traitor” scrawled across them.

Officials feared that Russian soldiers could be hiding dressed in civilian clothing and many collaborators are fleeing without reprisals amid the mayhem.

Alexei said he has detained more than 20 collaborators after just one week in the city, their crimes ranging from looting to sexually assaulting girls and providing intel that led to the capture and torture of Ukrainian partisans.
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The story of the Russian occupation within Ukraine is ongoing, but it is clear that it was not a liberation.  It was a brutal occupation of a country that was not theirs.

See, also:

Putin’s ‘Hunky-Dory’ Act Flops as Frantic Russians Flee Crimea

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Despite Aksyonov’s insistence calm will reign in Crimea, civilians in Crimea have reportedly begun reading between the lines and fleeing as fears mount that Ukraine might be serious about taking Crimea back, according to Emil Ibragimov, the head of the educational platform Q-Hub. Ibragimov told Radio NV that people are fleeing to the Russian region of Krasnodar to avoid any fallout, according to Newsweek.

“That is, we see this trend and can conclude that this is, of course, panic and fear that the [Ukraine] Armed Forces will be able to liberate Crimea in the near future,” Ibragimov said.

Aksyonov’s attempt to craft the narrative that Crimea will hold comes at a time when Russia’s plan to take over Ukraine seems shakier than ever. Increasingly, Russian officials are questioning Russian President Vladimir Putin’s judgment and war plans. Ukrainian forces’ counteroffensives throughout Ukraine have forced Russia to retreat from multiple pockets it had seized during the conflict this year. Earlier this month, Ukrainian forces pushed Russian troops from Kherson—a key city which was Russia’s last stronghold west of the Dnieper River—which Ukrainian officials view as a precursor to taking Crimea back.
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Russian civilians are now retreating from Crimea seized in 2014.