Olesya Novitskaya did not hesitate for a moment when the occupying authorities began issuing Russian passports in Melitopol, a city in southeastern Ukraine that had been captured by Moscow’s forces. “We were waiting for this,” he says.
AFP spoke to this 31-year-old professional makeup artist as part of a press trip hosted by Ministry of Defense of Russia to show the greeting extended to the occupiers by the population.
Journalists were not allowed to move freely around the city and talk to residents without being accompanied by a Russian military escort.
Accompanied by her two children, Novitskaya stood in line of twenty people waiting to ask her for Russian documents.
“I think we’ll all live in Russiathen I need a Russian passport. To be able to live here officially and normally,” he explains to AFP with a baby in his arms.
Occupation authorities of the Zaporozhye region, where melitopolThey want to organize a referendum at the end of the year to formalize joining Russia.
After weeks of waiting, Novitskaya is due to receive her new documents at a ceremony that will play the Russian anthem in front of a portrait. Vladimir Putin.
This distribution of passports, which is also taking place in other occupied regions of Ukraine, is part of Moscow’s strategy to irreversibly establish itself in the region.
Other measures include paying salaries and pensions in rubles, the Russian currency, opening rail and bus lines connecting the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed in 2014, and opening Russian-language schools.
“separated” residents
Melitopol was taken by the Russians shortly after the offensive began on 24 February. There were almost no battles in the city, which prevented its destruction.
At the time, the Ukrainian army was defending Kyiv, the capital, and Mariupol, the port city, which had been besieged and shelled for weeks.
In July of this year, the Russian military presence is invisible, but there are still checkpoints at some exits from the city. But Novitskaya doesn’t mind.
“Honestly, we expected that in 2014” – the year of the annexation of the Crimean peninsula and the armed conflict in the east Ukraine with pro-Russian separatists.
However, she acknowledges that not the entire population thinks the way she does. “Today the whole world is divided,” he says. “Some are for Russiaothers are from Ukraine,” he says.
She considers herself Russian, as do many people in this region where Russian is the dominant language. “My son, who was in the second grade of elementary school, found it difficult to study in Ukrainian,” he says.
The head of the regional occupation administration, Yevgeny Balitsky, admits that only 20-30 passports are issued daily in this city and “about a hundred” in the region.
The pace is “not yet up to par”, he lamented, noting that the control of the Russian special services slows down the process.
Added to this is a general atmosphere of distrust. Those who support Ukraine fear Russian reprisals. And those who prefer Russia fear that they will be seen as “traitors” or “collaborators” by Kyiv’s supporters.
In fact, some of the people standing in line to get a passport preferred to leave before the TV cameras arrived and the Russian military procession in front of the administrative building.
“We don’t talk ‘about Russian passports’ among ourselves,” admits 58-year-old resident Galina Vladimirovna. “It is still taboo, everyone is afraid,” he says.
Source: RPP
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