The situation is only getting worse: what is happening in the temporarily occupied territories of the Kherson region

“The standard practice of the KGB, which began under Stalin, is now continuing, including in the occupied territories,” — Tolokonnikov on how the Russians are repressing civilians both in Russia itself and in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

What is happening in the temporarily occupied territories of the Kherson region, how the repression of the Russians is intensifying, and what the humanitarian situation is against the backdrop of Russian pressure.

The deputy head of the Kherson regional military administration, Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, told Hromadske radio about this:

“The situation, to be honest, is not improving, it is only getting worse. The Russians are actively restricting access to information, access to opportunities for self-realization of this very information, to what you can watch, what you can listen to, who you can communicate with. The standard practice of the KGB, which began under Stalin, is now continuing, including in the occupied territories. This, of course, also applies to the information space.”

According to the deputy head of the regional military administration, the pressure of the Russians makes it impossible to work on the Internet. Also, the replacement of satellite television with the systems of the occupiers, which work intermittently:

“But you cannot install a different system than the one controlled by Russia. That is, all the channels that you watch, you must watch exactly those channels that Russia offers you, the others are impossible. This is the first. Secondly: this, probably, started about half a year ago, regarding the replenishment of the number, residents of the occupied territories can replenish only with passports. That is, they tie you to the number and, accordingly, then, when there are any movements on the number that they do not like, they come to you and start interrogating, etc.

That is, they also control mobile communications in order to identify the so-called “violators” and control this system. If they listen to someone, someone communicates, and not with someone who has connected a VPN – they monitor. There are many cases of seizing mobile phones to check whether there is Signal, which they supposedly cannot control, so if you have Signal, a messenger, they have a lot of questions for you, they call students, schoolchildren for interrogations.

Phones are taken away, some Russian control systems, so-called security protocols, which also limit access to everything that is not agreed upon by Russia. That is, such total information repressions in almost all areas, I think they will only get worse. “

About repressions and restrictions in the information plan, there is also information from representatives of the “Yellow Ribbon” movement that the occupiers are forcing residents in the temporarily occupied territories of the Kherson region to register home Wi-Fi routers, in particular, this concerns Skadovsk.

Another aspect and goal that Russia sets for all occupied territories in Ukraine are children. What do we now know about the educational process, the teaching process, how it takes place in the temporarily occupied territories of the Kherson region, ideological pressure and, perhaps, in general, what is the “curriculum”, how much is it already Russified and how much has everything about Ukraine been “cleaned out” from there?

“That’s right, and this is the most terrible thing, that precisely in propaganda and in teaching children, in the propaganda of an alternative “history”, the Russians can write textbooks on how to do this. Because I think that this again came from the Soviet Union, how they “cleaned out” the habits and history of the people in the occupied territories.

And that’s why they are using the same thing now in the occupied territories. Propaganda in children, brainwashing — this is exactly what they do perfectly and without failures, unfortunately.

Some myths about Ukrainian defenders are imposed on children. Terrible, which they then go and tell their parents. And, of course, it works in such a way that when a child tells parents the same thing, sooner or later changes begin to occur in the parents’ minds.

Because if you don’t resist this information, when your child starts talking about it, you start to be more loyal to it anyway. And I think that due to this, it’s their idea to reformat everyone’s minds through children,” says Alexander Tolokonnikov.