The Guardian reports:

Russian soldiers patrol the streets of Berdyansk in cars and armoured vehicles marked with the “Z” symbol that denotes the Russian occupying force.

Local government officials in this city in southern Ukraine, which has been controlled by Russian troops for the past two weeks, have been kicked out of their offices, and the local radio station plays Soviet ballads and Russian pop songs, interspersed with excerpts from Vladimir Putin’s speeches and news items about Ukraine being “liberated from Nazis.”

“We feel like we’re living a nightmare, and we don’t know when this awful dream will end,” said one local councillor in the city, who asked to remain anonymous, citing security fears. “We still can’t believe that this could have happened.”

As international focus remains on Kharkiv, Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities that have come under heavy Russian bombardment, there is a less violent but no less important battle for Ukraine’s future going on in a stretch of southern Ukraine that came under Russian control in the first days of the war, without major fighting.

Between Mariupol and Mykolaiv, both of which have come under Russian air attack, there are a number of sizable Ukrainian towns currently under Russian occupation.

In Berdyansk, a port city to the west of Mariupol with a population of a little over 100,000, the majority of city councillors have remained loyal to Ukraine. They continue to run the city, in defiance of the Russian occupation. However, the Russians may be about to transition to more violent methods. [Continue reading…]