He calls the invaders “barbarians.” “There is no other word for them,” he says, describing pro-Russian fighters from Donetsk who are squatting in apartments. “How can kids be there if they’re walking around drunk with guns and grenades in the village. How can a kid see that?” Haliliuk asks. Poor discipline among the patchwork of mercenaries, conscripts, separatists and soldiers Russia has relied on to attack Ukraine has contributed to the chaos of its occupation. Halilyuk says in his village, fighters from the Russia-friendly Donetsk People’s Republic turned on their Russian counterparts as they tried to steal a local man’s car. What ensued was a heated argument at gunpoint between two groups that should have been on the same side. “There was almost a shootout between them,” Haliluk recounts. “They were arguing with each other. They threw their weapons at each other.” “And they came to set us free. From whom? Did we ask that? Did we ask you to come here?” Every day, about 400 people arrive in Kryvyi Rih from Russian-held territory and the conflict zone, grateful to reach the relative safety of the industrial city about 40 miles north of the front line. In total, more than 61,000 have taken refuge there since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. A local official in Kryvyi Rih told CNN that administrators began printing documents for the displaced the day Russia invaded, anticipating the mass exodus that would follow. “I woke up every morning to explosions and gunfire, and then went to sleep at night to explosions and gunfire,” says Halilyuk. “It’s quiet here. Yes, there are air raid sirens from time to time, but it’s not like you’re in bed tossing and turning.”

Kherson resists

According to the local military command, a Ukrainian counterattack to the south pushed Kryvyi Rih out of range of Russian artillery. But nowhere in this country is safe from Russian missile attacks. Now, Ukraine is launching its own missiles at Kherson — using donated military hardware such as the US HIMARS mobile missile system to strike deep into enemy territory. Ukrainians say strikes on Russian ammunition depots and command posts in Kherson have made it easier for them to retake villages, drawing in civilians they say are working to drive the Russians out. When Russian troops first occupied Kherson, locals met armored personnel carriers with protests — waving the blue-and-yellow flag of Ukraine. Now, the occupation has cut off the city’s communications with the outside world, but the Ukrainian government claims it remains a local resistance movement. Anti-Russian graffiti and effigies of Russian troops remind the occupiers of its existence. “People understand that the liberation of the territory will happen, that the collaborators and the occupiers will not stay there forever,” said Natalia Khomenyuk, a spokeswoman for the southern command of the Ukrainian military. “People don’t want to work with them. They don’t want to teach their curriculum, they don’t want to treat their soldiers. They don’t want to. That’s resistance,” he says.

Forced to be Russian

Home to about 300,000 people before the war, Kherson is the largest population center Russia has captured in its five-month campaign. There, the newly formed regional administration has repeatedly stated that it will hold a referendum to become a “full” member of the Russian Federation. The White House believes that this attempt by Russia to formally annex the Kherson region, as well as parts of Zaporizhzhia and the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, could be done before the end of this year. The Russian ruble will be established as the official currency and Ukrainians will be forced to apply for Russian citizenship, the White House announced on Tuesday. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov appeared to confirm such intentions on July 20 when he said Moscow’s geographic targets now extended beyond Donetsk and Luhansk to “Kherson Oblast, Zaporizhia Oblast and a number of other territories.” In Kherson, the ruble already circulates and official literature is distributed in Russian — whether the locals can speak the language or not. Local endocrinologist Dr. Maxim Ovchar says he helped his Ukrainian-speaking neighbors by translating these forms, but refused to work for the imposed administration.
“I lost my job. My house. Some of my friends I lost were killed by the Russians,” he says. The 26-year-old met CNN at a reception center for displaced people in Kryvyi Rih, where he broke down in tears, admitting he was ashamed of turning to charity. But Moscow was a master he would not serve. “They wanted to sum me up,” he says, “making me part of the tenured administration in public health. I was the last endocrinologist in town and probably in the area. Because everyone ran away.” Dr Ovchar says he was arrested twice for his infidelity, with armed Russians eventually threatening his family before he fled Kherson with his grandmother. Ovchar chose July 7 to travel when, he says, Russian troops were drunkenly celebrating the anniversary of an earlier military victory in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine.

Escape prevention

Many major routes out of Kherson have been closed by the Russian army. In the frontline town of Zelenodolsk, an hour’s drive south of Kryvyi Rih, hundreds of discarded bicycles tell of improvised escapes. Recent drone footage captured by a Ukrainian soldier shows a column of women, children and the elderly walking down a dusty road to safety. Cars have been shot at on other streets, escapees say. The city was shelled by the Russians several days this week. At the Kryvyi Rih reception center, Dr. Ovchar’s face shrinks from tears and anger as he admits that his hatred of Russia’s war led him to question his Hippocratic oath. Ukrainian medics treated wounded Russian soldiers when they arrived at his hospital after a battle with local resistance. Now, he says, he would kill them if he had the chance. “Despite the fear and that I am a doctor, I cannot allow myself to harm a man, but I will tell you frankly, if there was a Russian, I would kill him if I had a gun.”