Russians moving their families into homes of Ukrainians who fled from Kherson

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar announced this during a briefing at the Ukraine-Ukrinform Media Center.

“Now we can say that Russia has intensified the movement of families of Russian occupation forces to the Ukrainian settlements captured by the Russian aggressors, including the city of Kherson. The newcomers, or the so-called ‘Russian migrants,’ illegally move into vacant houses and apartments of Ukrainian citizens who have fled the area to save their lives at the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24," said Maliar.

In addition, Russian invaders have boosted their efforts to force the population in the captured territories to obtain Russian passports. According to the Deputy Defense Minister, the electronic queue for Russian passports is drawn up for two weeks as of June 13. It is presumed that these measures are aimed at artificially increasing the share of the local population guaranteed to support the Kremlin plans for the annexation of temporarily occupied areas in case the sham referendums are held.

The official also stressed that Russia did not give up on its plans to hold so-called referendums in the occupied parts of Ukraine. At the same time, they are seeing no success for two reasons: powerful local resistance, and the efforts undertaken by legitimate Ukrainian authorities, authorized to hold such polls, to prevent them.

As reported by Ukrinform, Kherson locals snubbed the Russia Day celebrations organized on June 12 and burned a Russian flag after snatching it from an administrative building in the city center.

On June 14, Russian invaders abducted Kherson State University’s Vice-Rector Maksym Vinnyk.