The Washington Post reports:

More than three months of occupation by Russian soldiers has left much of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region isolated, without access to basic medicines and cut off from Ukrainian cellphone and internet service.

The Russian tricolor flag is displayed at most of the main government buildings. There are whispers of a coming referendum that would formally make Kherson part of Russia, at least in the Kremlin’s eyes. The armed occupying forces patrol the streets, while the blasts of artillery shells crashing in the distance can be heard daily — signs of the ongoing fight between the Russian and Ukrainian militaries for control of the area.

Interviews by The Washington Post with people who live in Kherson, evacuated recently or are in regular contact with residents there painted a grim picture of prolonged life under occupation, in an area that marked Russia’s first major land grab of this war. More than 100 days have passed since Russian tanks rolled into the region from the neighboring Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow invaded and illegally annexed in 2014.

Stores and pharmacies have been closed during that time, and people don’t have access to money while their local Ukrainian banks and ATMs are not operating. There are markets with goods sold out of the trunks of cars — a scene one woman likened to the days after the fall of the Soviet Union. Supplies of medicines such as insulin and saline solution, which is used in everything from cleaning wounds to storing contact lenses, are critically low, she and others said. [Continue reading…]