So, what's it going to be? the Russian security officer asked: "Become mayor or we will break your legs." SinceRussia's full-scale invasion of Ukraineon Feb. 24, 2022, researchers and human rights organizations have been quietly documenting examples like this that illustrate what everyday life has been like for the estimated 3.6 million Ukrainians who live in territories occupied by Russia. That threat to a Ukrainian official in the Kherson region involved being dragged by a Russian security officer to a basement and presented with an ultimatum backed by a sledgehammer. Human rights issues like these could take on more prominence as PresidentDonald Trumphas appeared topressure Ukraineto consider giving up territory as part of peace negotiations with Russia. For nearly four years, Russia has not provided independent access to these Ukrainian areas, which include parts of the Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Luhansk, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia regions, as well as Crimea − roughly 20% of Ukraine's territory. However, testimony has emerged from Ukrainian evacuees, from those who have escaped and from civilians and officials who live in frontline areas liberated by Ukraine. Crimes of war:Ukraine's pursuit of justice And it is damning. There are widespread reports of extrajudicial killings, psychological intimidation, unlawful detentions, torture,child kidnappingsand disappearances. Residents face persistent shortages of water, electricity and medical care. Locals are pressured to become Russian citizens and serve in the military as part of an indoctrination program of "Russification." Local Ukrainian government representatives face persecution. More:Ukrainian children taken to Russia brings back fear, memories of a similar Nazi effort The case of the local Ukrainian official threatened in Kherson in March 2022 was documented by the Kyiv-based human rights organization ZMINA. Russian administrators wanted him to assume the mayoral role after the sitting mayor, Volodymyr Mykolaienko, was detained and sent to a Russian penal colony, where he still languishes, for refusing to cooperate with the occupation administration. "I told him that I had no desire to become mayor, and I had no desire to work at all, and I didn't want my legs to be broken," the official told ZMINA, which withheld the official's name for security reasons. "He said that I had a choice: either they break my legs or I will work. I said I didn't want either." ZMINA has documented dozens of similar cases involving police officers, village heads, public administrators and civil servants that Russia has sought to coerce to collaborate with Russia's occupying force. Russia doesn't even bother denying this and if it does says that Ukrainians are happy to be brought into the Russian fold. 85713963007 More recently, one Ukrainian, a former military officer whose hometown is occupied by Russia, told USA TODAY his cousin spent a month in jail because the FSB, the main successor to the Soviet Union's KGB security and intelligence agency, found out they were related. After Russia occupied most of the Zaporizhzhia region, it banned the Ukrainian Catholic Church and Catholic charities, saying they worked in the interests of foreign intelligence services and stored weapons. Mykola Kuleba is the CEO of Save Ukraine, a charitable organization that works to return an estimated35,000 Ukrainian childrenstolen by Russian troops and illegally transferred to Russia and Belarus in what may amount towar crimes.He recently raised the alarm over a digital adoption database where around 300 allegedly abducted Ukrainian children can be searched and sorted by age, gender, color, health status − even personality traits. "These children are presented as products in an e-commerce store,"Kuleba wroteon the social media platform X. "These children are not 'war orphans.' They had names, families, and Ukrainian citizenship. Many lost their parents to shelling. Others were forcibly taken and re-registered with new documents. Now, they're being matched with Russian families, treated like animals in a pet adoption database." Russia, for its part, denies that all this activity is happening and dismisses it as Ukrainian propaganda. The International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, has nevertheless issued arrest warrants for Russian PresidentVladimir Putinand Russia's Children's Rights Commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, on allegations they deny, including the unlawful deportation and transfer ofUkrainian children to Russia. The next step in any peace process between Ukraine and Russia may be for Ukrainian PresidentVolodymyr Zelenskyyand Putin to hold direct talks. It's not clear whether that's going to happen. Zelenskyy has appeared willing to meet; Putin less so. "We're going to see if Putin and Zelenskyy will be working together," Trump said Aug. 22. "It's like oil and vinegar a little bit. They don't get along too well for obvious reasons. But we'll see. And we'll see whether or not I would have to be there. I'd rather not, I'd rather them have a meeting and see how they can do." Still, while Trump has spoken of "land swaps," it's also not clearZelenskyywould be willing to agree to territorial concessions as a means to end the war. Zelenskyy has argued − and many European leaders have concurred − that such a move would not only set a potentially dangerous precedent around legitimizing illegal military occupations. It may only amount to a brief reprieve before Putin seeks to invade Ukraine, or another region lost when the Soviet Union broke up at the end of the Cold War. Will he get Putin meeting?Ukraine's Zelenskyy avoids Trump mauling at White House The White House has said the United States will play some role inguaranteeing Ukraine's securityin the event of a peace deal, but that any such force is likely to be outside the NATO military alliance, and details are vague. Zelenskyy has also said that Ukraine's constitution expressly forbids giving up the country's territory. Meanwhile, Jeremy Pizzi, a legal adviser at Global Rights Compliance, an international human rights law firm with offices in Kyiv, Washington, DC, and The Hague, has been helping Ukraine build war crimes cases against Russia. He said that Russia's authorities in the occupied territories continue to pursue a coordinated state policy of abuses targeting those perceived as anti-Russian. Pizzi said that discussions about a Ukraine-Russia land swap were a "cynical notion" that "actually involves jeopardizing millions of lives with the abject horror of Russian occupation." Others, such as Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, nevertheless describe land swaps as the "fundamental issue" to be discussed in peace talks, highlighting the gaping chasm on this issue. An opinion poll conducted by The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in June showed 68% of Ukrainians questioned opposed the idea of officially recognizing "some parts" of occupied land as belonging to Russia, if it would end the war. Some 24% were open to the idea. The same survey showed 78% of Ukrainians were against the idea of giving up on land that Kyiv's troops still control, an even more controversial idea floated by Moscow. The pollster did not survey opinions in areas occupied by Russia. For good reason. Jade McGlynn is a British researcher and Russia expert at King's College London. Her recent work has focused on Russia's war against Ukraine, with an emphasis on life in the occupied territories. She said that Ukrainians who live there face stifled freedom of expression and local authorities cruelly "weaponize" children by threatening to take them away from their parents if they don't conform to Russia's rules, which effectively wipe out Ukrainian national, linguistic and cultural identity. This involves forcing Ukrainians to apply for Russian passports and to regularly submit to intrusive searches at checkpoints and in their homes. Their cellphones are also monitored, a situation that McGlynn said has made communication with friends and relatives outside the occupied territories ever more dangerous as Russia has moved to roll out state-issued cellphones preloaded with software that tracks users' communications. McGlynn said private polling she has commissioned among Ukrainians who have been able to leave the occupied territories shows about 50% are still in touch with their families back home. But that will almost certainly change now that every new phone bought in the occupied territories from September will come with "Max Messenger," a WhatsApp replacement that enables authorities to closely monitor its users and what they see, say and do. Still, many Ukrainians marooned in occupied land have been able to resist through intelligence-gathering and sabotage of major rail transportation networks. Locals don't dare protest. Though sometimes people will give Russians wrong directions as an act of personal defiance. Ukraine's military special forces units have also appeared to carry out targeted assassinations, sometimes with aid from civil resistance activists. They do so at great risk. McGlynn said in the last month, particularly in the Zaporizhzhia region, people linked to resistance groups have been disappearing in greater numbers. She said it is still relatively easy to be killed or attacked in the middle of the street for perceived transgressions against Russia's local authorities. "People have understood that you don't need to keep threatening them. They realize that their legs can be broken," she said, referring to the March 2022 case in the Kherson region. "It's become normalized." She also pointed out that while the conditions for Ukrainians living in occupied territories are harsh, that doesn't mean they necessarily approve of Zelenskyy's policies. Some feel abandoned. Others view Russia sympathetically. Ukraine's leader has also drawn criticism in Ukraine for a conscription policy that's led to allegations of human rights breaches. Men have been dragged out of homes and even nightclubs by recruiters. For Andriy Sechko, 23, who lived in an occupied part of the Kherson region before escaping in 2024, life in his village turned into what he described as a terrifying game of "hide and seek." He said that "silent terror" reigned in his village as collaborators reported on pro-Ukrainian residents, people were kidnapped and beaten up. Sechko survived Russian searches and inspections for two years, he toldUkrainian outlet Babel, mostly by staying at home reading and painting and studying online. Russia does not generally let men of fighting age leave the occupied territories. Sechko's family members took a risk. One day, with the help of volunteer activists, they loaded into a minibus with their Ukrainian documents. They prepared a fake cover story. They were stopped at two different checkpoints. Sechko's phone was examined. "I reset the phone to factory settings. They saw that the phone was empty. The Russians believe their own propaganda. They were convinced that I would be shot on Ukrainian territory or sent to the front as cannon fodder. This is what they tell all the men who want to return to Ukraine," he said. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Ukraine, and its occupied people, face land-for-peace dilemma
