The Kremlin-backed administration of Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Kherson region is offering residents “vacation” to Russia amid the lingering war and concerns over efforts to “Russify” Ukrainians.
The Russian-recognized regional administration of Kherson announced in a Telegram post last week that it has set up a hotline for “children and their parents, as well as everyone who wants” to take a holiday. Located in southern Ukraine, Kherson has seen intense fighting as Ukrainian forces seek to push out the Russian military. The hotline implementation followed reports of Russia forcibly migrating Ukrainians from occupied territories.
Volodymyr Saldo, the former Kherson mayor who the Kremlin has installed as head of the occupied region, told the Russian state-run news agency TASS on Friday that most residents were staying put despite having the option to leave the region’s daily rocket fire. He said only about 350 residents had asked for help leaving.
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Saldo said on Thursday in a Telegram post that he was organizing for residents to travel to Russia “for recreation and study,” or to “protect themselves from the consequences of missile strikes.”
The post acknowledged that the region continued to be contested despite Russian President Vladimir Putin saying in September that Kherson was among four regions of Ukraine that had voted to join Russia, a notion that was rejected in a lopsided United Nations General Assembly vote.
Kirill Stremousov, Saldo’s deputy, earlier on Telegram downplayed Kherson residents leaving the region, saying it didn’t amount to an evacuation. But on Friday, Stremousov took a different tone, encouraging residents to remain calm and take “a humanitarian trip to rest and [recuperate] in the Russian Federation.”
“It’s no secret that the shelling of the Kherson region is dangerous primarily for the civilian population,” he said in the post Friday.
Since Putin launched Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, international monitors and Ukrainian officials reported that Ukrainian citizens caught in occupied areas have been forced to relocate to Russia, which the Kremlin has denied.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based think tank, has previously published research on the Kremlin’s efforts to strip Ukrainians of their cultural identity.
“Russian authorities are continuing to engage in “Russification” social programming schemes that target Ukrainian children,” the think tank on Friday found in its research.
The ISW cited reports from local media and Ukrainian officials that Russia was deporting children, some orphans, from occupied regions. The deportations have been described by Russian officials as “children’s trips” and “further education” programs, according to the the group’s research. Teenagers in the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol are also being pressured to join an anti-Ukrainian “Youth Guard” paramilitary group, the ISW added.
Newsweek has reached out to the Ukrainian Ministry of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories for comment.
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