One video of the demonstrations shows people marching through Kherson’s main square despite occasional volleys. It is not clear where the shooting came from, but it is clear that a small detachment of Russian soldiers is guarding the building of the regional council.
Protesters chanted “Ukraine” and the loudest applause came when a young man waving a blue-and-yellow flag of Ukraine climbed onto a Russian armored personnel carrier.
One person who attended the protests managed to send a series of videos to CNN saying in broken English: “People want to show that Kherson is Ukraine, and all the brave people who are not afraid of the Russian military are coming to this rally.”
On Sunday, another demonstration took place in Kherson. Videos from this event show that it was smaller, but no less decisive. In one video, an older woman stared into the camera and quietly said, “Save our country! Let them all die with Putin.”
The protests in Kherson this weekend were the largest and latest in a rising tide of confrontation in several Ukrainian cities of any size that have been taken by Russian forces.
This could be an ominous sign for Russian commanders who are already trying to break Ukrainian military resistance. And, despite the risk, this civil disobedience is forced from above.
On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote in a Facebook post: “Everyone who can defend their city must continue to fight. Must. Because if everyone leaves, then whose city will it be?
And on Sunday, hundreds of people heeded Zelenskiy’s call and took part in marches across the Kherson region, which is close to Russia-controlled Crimea.
In the town of Novaya Kakhovka, the crowd cheered as an elderly woman greeted Russian troops with a broom and dustpan. Two men climbed onto a plinth to raise the Ukrainian flag near City Hall.
A video of smoke rising from the crowd amid gunshots later surfaced. The Ukrainian news agency Interfax reported that five people were injured when the Russian military opened fire – apparently over the heads of the protesters – and used stun grenades.
It seemed that almost all cities in Kherson do not work on Sunday. In Novoalekseyka, hundreds of people sang the national anthem and shouted “Ukraine above all else” as they walked along a rural road.
And in Kalanchak, closer to Crimea, hundreds of people sang the national anthem and shouted “Ukraine above all” as they walked along the countryside, and several generations of locals were bound by national solidarity.
They then unfurled a huge Ukrainian flag and ranted to masked and heavily armed Russian soldiers. The women shouted: “Get off our land, we don’t need you! Get off our land!”
Since the middle of last week, protests against Russia, often involving only a few dozen people, have been marching from Berdyansk on Ukraine’s southern coast to Konotop, hundreds of miles north between Kiev and Kharkov.
When the Russian military arrived in Konotop, a small crowd surrounded the Russian military vehicle, shouting insults. One climbed onto his hood and then fell as he sped away. In Berdyansk, a crowd sang the Ukrainian anthem outside the mayor’s office, which was occupied by Russian troops last week. The braver civilians confronted the soldiers in the truck, who seemed confused.
Individual acts of defiance go viral in a country where the internet and mobile communications remain virtually untouched, much to the surprise of most people. The footage quickly circulated on Telegram and Facebook—short, jagged clips that pierce the naked courage of the protesters.
These are all scattered examples and do not amount to organized resistance. But they are showing genuine defiance and opposition to the new order that Russian forces are trying to impose as they gradually gain more territory.
The difficulty for the occupying forces is to find local officials willing to work under them to maintain services in cities where there is a shortage of food and medicine. The Russians seem to be ill-prepared for the creation of local administrations.
So far, in most cases, Russian troops have kept a low profile in the face of civil protests. They stood their ground, but did not react. But not always. In a city in the east of the Luhansk region, predominantly Russian-speaking, residents took to the streets of Novopskov on Friday.
“Get out of here! War and death are coming for you,” they chanted.
They returned for more on Saturday when Russian troops wounded one man in the leg and fired volleys into the air to disperse the crowd approaching their positions.
What is not clear is whether the Russians will be able to simultaneously control the cities they begin to occupy and try to push forward across this vast country. Russian troops are already experiencing supply problems, according to US officials. Crushing the Ukrainian military resistance, as well as pacifying the emboldened population, will not be an easy task.