By Andrew E. Kramer
Section: World
Source: New York Times
Published Date: November 13, 2022 at 02:00AM
In Kherson, national songs were banned, speaking Ukrainian could lead to arrest, and students were told they were Russian. Cue the resistance.
KHERSON, Ukraine — Iryna Dyagileva’s daughter attended a school where the curriculum included memorizing the Russian national anthem. But teachers ignored it, instead quietly greeting students in the morning with a salute: “Glory to Ukraine!”
The occupation authorities asked Olha Malyarchuk, a clerk at a taxi company, to settle bills in rubles. But she kept paying in Ukrainian currency, the hryvnia.
“It just didn’t work,” Ms. Malyarchuk said of the Russian propaganda that was beamed into televisions and plastered on billboards for the nine months of Russia’s occupation of Kherson. On Sunday, she was walking in a park, waving a small Ukrainian flag.
One roadside billboard proclaimed in bold text, “We are together with Russia!” But a teenager who offered only his first name, Oleksandr, had shinned up the supporting pole and was tearing the sign to pieces. Asked how he felt, he said, “Free.”
The Ukrainian Army, defying the odds after its much more powerful neighbor invaded in February, has reclaimed hundreds of villages and towns in three major counteroffensives north of Kyiv, in the northeastern Kharkiv region and now in the southern Kherson region.
Reblog https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/13/world/europe/russia-kherson-ukraine.html
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