Ukrainian cities are now occupied by Russian troops, and residents are not making them feel welcome.
In the southern city Ukrainian city of Melitopol on Monday, the mayor Ivan Federov sat down at his desk to send out his daily Facebook update.
The ordinary phone lines were no longer an option, Federov told the BBC, when the Telegram app finally connected. "We cannot use," he said. "Too easy for the Russians to listen in." The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has claimed he is invading Ukraine to liberate historically Russian lands and speakers from a Nazi regime. But in Melitopol and a string of other mainly-Russian speaking southern and eastern cities, his forces have found themselves treated as occupiers.Russian military vehicles are seen on the street in Kherson, south-eastern Ukraine
About 5,000 people gathered in Melitopol's central square on Tuesday, Federov reckoned, despite the shooting last week, which wounded a man in the leg. Videos have surfaced showing protests in occupied and part-occupied cities and towns across the region - Kherson, Berdyansk, Starobilsk, Novopskov. The BBC reached residents and local mayors to try to understand the situation inside.
Reports of serious violence against Ukrainian protesters have been limited, for the most part Russian forces seem to be tensely watching. But some local mayors were facing a dilemma - how much to encourage their citizens to take to the streets. Novopskov appeared to be an example of a strange and uneasy scenario playing out in some parts of Ukraine, where local Ukrainian officials were continuing to function in some form but Russian military forces were in control. In the occupied city of Starobilsk, nearby, mayor Yana Litvinova was also working remotely, she said.
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