There is no evidence of Vladimir Putin’s soldiers being welcomed anywhere. The invading Russians appear ill-prepared for this
THE TANKS that left Crimea on February 24th took five days to get to the centre of Kherson, 120km or so to the north-west. But on March 1st they reached the centre of the city—normally a sleepy, provincial place, similar in population and distance from the sea to Bordeaux, but now a strategically important part of Russias entire coast. Russian state media heralded the fall of the city as the campaign’s first “liberation”.
Spirited resistance across Ukraine—from Berdyansk on the Azov Sea to Sumy in the north-east—has been backed up by a widespread unwillingness to acquiesce in the parts of the country where Ukraine has lost control. There is no evidence of Vladimir Putins soldiers being welcomed anywhere. The mood is generally one of contempt. In Konotop, a town in Sumy oblast, a local woman was filmed asking a Russian tank-driver if he knew about the towns literary association with the occult.
Alexander Mogilinkov, one of thousands to attend the rallies, said by phone on March 8th that the violence of the Russian army has galvanised people in town. Protesters are nervous, he says, and they face a new threat they do not understand. But they are even more fearful of the repression and poverty that Mr Putin has imposed on the nearby regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, which have been controlled by Russia since 2014.
Locals report an invading army that is hungry, looting, and “out of control”. Viktor Merinkov, the director of a boarding school for deaf children in the centre of Kherson, says the disrespectful behaviour of soldiers had made them no friends.he says. His wife Valentina intervenes on the call to urge him to temper his language; the couple have responsibility for eight young students, stranded in Kherson, she reminds him.
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