Women protrude from the occupied territories

“The Russians are trying to ban all Ukrainian here: language, as well as traditions. Even Ukrainian holidays are prohibited.”

It is a sadness and fear rarely heard from the inside of Ukraine – the one who lives in one of the Russian regions. We call her Maria.

As the United States is making efforts to negotiate peace in Ukraine, those who live under Russian occupation face a tough, repressive future.

The Kremlin has already imposed serious restrictions aimed at releasing Ukrainian identity, including severe punishments for those who dare to disagree.

Now there is fears that Kiev may be forced to abandon at least some territory occupied by Russia as part of a potential ceasefire or peace deal.

Ukrainian officials reject this, but Moscow says that at least wants to capture four Ukrainian regions that it partially controls – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye – in addition to Crimea, which it joined in 2014.

Due to the repression of the Russian authorities, speaking from the media and even your own relatives in the occupied territories can be a lot of danger.

The Kremlin has also launched a wide campaign to force Ukrainians to accept Russian passports in the occupied territories. Data suggest What Ukrainians are denied health and free movement if they do not accept Russian citizenship.

Maria (not her real name) said she was a member of the Group Resistance Group, which carried out peaceful resistance campaign in these territories, mainly distributing leaflets and newsletters.

In an interview with the BBC Today, she used a Ukrainian proverb to describe the danger she faced: “You have fear in the eyes, but your hands are still doing it. Of course it’s scary.”

BBC cannot reveal your real name or place so as not to put it in danger.

The atmosphere of fear and suspicion is that when I tried to contact the residents of the occupied Mariopol, I was accused of being a Russian journalist.

“You don’t like what I have to say. People like you, kill when you tell them the truth,” one person told me through a direct message on social media. They claimed that they were from the port -sity captured by the Russians in May 2022 after the bloody siege that left her in the ruins.

Later, I asked some Ukrainian friends, can I talk to their relatives living in the occupied areas. Everyone said no – that would be too dangerous.

Sofia (also not her real name) comes from the village in the southern region of the Covenant of Ukraine. It was busy on the fifth day of a full-scale invasion of 2022, and this is an hour south of the city of Zaparichi, a major regional center, which is still under Ukrainian control.

Sofia is now in the UK, but her parents are still in her village, and she told me about the care she needs to take while talking to them.

“About a year ago, my parents searched the FSB (Russian security service). They confiscated their phones, accusing them of telling the Ukrainian army about where Russian troops were located.

“I have to read between the lines when they tell me about what’s going on.”

And just talking to them is more difficult. Sofia says her parents cannot even replenish their mobile phones or insure their car because they refuse to accept Russian passports.

“It becomes a really clumsy life without Russian certificates,” she says.

Yeva, whose name we also changed, has a sister who works at the Russian Nuclear Power Plant.

“Every time we move from the weather or our children to our subjects, its tone changes,” Eve says. “She tells me, ‘You don’t understand! “

“What I understand is that, being a nuclear power plant worker, her phone will probably be wrong,” Eve says. She also says her sister often repeats pro -Russian stories by talking to her.

Another friend, Katterin, tells me that someone she knows in the occupied part of the Hersan region was punished for a conversation with a brother who assisted the Ukrainian army. “I can’t be at risk,” Katterin told me when I asked me to be tied up with my friend.

According to Maria, Russian administrations set observation systems to control any manifestation. “They make a lot of CCTV cameras to control everyone to find all activists,” she says.

Many Ukrainian activists were killed or disappeared under Russian occupation. According to the Ukrainian right group ZminaAt least 121 activists, volunteers and journalists were killed during a full -scale invasion, most of them during the first year.

Prior to the invasion, Russia has compiled lists of activists who will be arrested or killed, the group reports.

Most recently, the authorities set by Russia have applied a set of repressive laws against dissidents. They may be punished for allegedly crimes, such as the dissemination of “false information”, “discrediting” the Russian army or support of “extremism”.

1279 cases on charges of “discredit” of the Russian Armed Forces, Says Ukrainian Government Office in Crimea. According to him, 224 people were in prison in the occupied Ukrainian region for expression, most of which are members of the indigenous Crimean Tatar community.

Despite the danger, a number of underground resistance groups are active in the occupied parts of Ukraine.

Zla Mavka, which acquires its name from the Ukrainian mythical being, is a non-violent all women’s movement, which is mainly focused on the distribution of posters and letters in the occupied regions.

In Melitopol, the Zaparitzhi region region, the guerrillas sent them to the troops and their transport, while the Crimean Tatar Group participated in exploration and diversion.

Meanwhile, the movement of the yellow ribbon distributes Ukrainian symbols in the occupied territories.

Due to the lack of independent media in the occupied parts of Ukraine, it is difficult to check the influence of such activity. However, there is no evidence that suggests that they caused significant violations for the occupation forces.

Maria says that whole streets are lined with Russian propaganda.

“In the city centers, everything is covered with Russian propaganda: Putin’s billboards, Putin’s quotes, people they call the heroes of a special military operation. There are flags everywhere,” she says BBC.

The Kremlin banned Ukrainian and independent media, including the BBC, and the propagandists were sent from Russia to create friendly media in the occupied territories. After many professional journalists escaped, they were forced to use local teenagers to distribute Moscow stories.

Pro -Russian propaganda begins early at school, where children are forced to attend classes that glorify the Russian army and join the quasi military groups such as Yunarmia (Youth Army).

One of the Russian school books even justifies the invasion of Ukraine, falsely reflecting it as an aggressive state, ruled by nationalist extremists and manipulated by the West.