According to several reports published by Ukraine’s National Resistance Centre, Russians have been tightening security and expanding their efforts to tackle continued dissent and underground resistance in the temporarily occupied territories.
In particular, Russians seem to be expanding the size of their staff at the Centre for Countering Extremism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Republic of Crimea (“Centre E”), including involving civilian informers, the National Resistance Center wrote. This entity monitors various online information resources (such as social networks, Telegram channels, blogs, forums, and sites having a comment section). The main task of Centre E is to identify what Russians call “unreliable individuals” and add their names to the specialised Extremist AIS database. The mere social media comments or even reactions to posts criticising the Russian invasion of Ukraine or expressing a pro-Ukrainian position can be the reasons for inclusion in the database.
In cooperation with Roskomnadzor, a Russian state agency responsible for monitoring, controlling and censoring Russian mass media, the Centre E blocks online information resources publishing Kremlin-unfavorable information. The employees of this centre also conduct special checks on candidates seeking to secure a position in the occupation administrations and critical infrastructure facilities.
National Resistance Centre sources assert that Russians may have already entered data on nearly 7,000 individuals into their database. This includes over a thousand representatives of Crimea’s indigenous Crimean Tatar people.
Based on the information obtained from the Ukrainian underground, the National Resistance Centre says that Russian security forces estimated Crimea’s protest potential at 30,000 people. FSB, Russia’s principal security and intelligence agency, created a network of resources to report any dissent. These include popular Telegram channels such as Krymskiy SMERSH (Crimean SMERSH) and Sevastopol.SMERSH.
It was earlier reported that a resident of the occupied Sevastopol, Kateryna Osipova, posted photos on her social media with what was described as “blue and yellow objects” (she posted a glass with blue and yellow straws). Osipova was later taken to a police station and forced to apologise on camera with the Russian flag in the background. Other reports also mentioned a tattoo master who was arrested for agreeing to make a tattoo saying “Crimea is Ukraine” and a resident of Feodosiya who posted the Ukrainian song ‘Bakhmut Fortress’ on her social media.
Russians also continue searching and harassing civilians in other occupied territories, fearing growing resistance. In the temporarily occupied territories of the Zaporizhzhia region, illegal Russian authorities and the Russian military have been tightening the measures to identify any centres of resistance. Namely, under the guise of a so-called ‘firearms and ammunition licensing and permission’ system, Russian occupation forces have obliged the local residents owning firearms to urgently register with the units of Russia’s “Federal Service of the National Guard Troops Management of the Zaporizhzhia region”.
It was also reported that in Tokmak, the occupied city of the Zaporizhzhia region, Russians have been searching for Ukraine’s Defence Forces ‘informants’. They’ve also reportedly raided over 300 premises looking for explosive materials. Overall, according to National Resistance Centre, Russian occupation forces claim that there are over 5,000 ‘informants’ in the temporarily occupied territories.
