Invasion: The Inside Story of Russia's Bloody War and Ukraine's Fight for Survival

by Luke Harding

In June it was the turn of Kolykhaiev, Kherson’s elected mayor. The FSB detained him when he went to work at the city council building, where his executive committee continued to function. Russian troops broke open safes, looking for documents. They seized hard drives. Kolykhaiev had refused to transfer communal enterprises to Russian jurisdiction, aides said. He was put in a bus marked with a Z and driven away to an unknown destination. The “ex-mayor” was “neutralized,” Stremousov said. Word of these abductions spread. Gradually the mass rallies ceased. A quiet terror descended over Kherson. Streets were mostly empty. Supplies of fuel, food, and medicines ran low; ATMs and banks stopped working; farmers supplied vegetables; bread was homemade. “The whole city was mostly moving on bicycle,” Yulia, the artist, said. “We pedaled past Russian tanks. The soldiers generally wore balaclavas. You couldn’t see their faces.” In some raids, the occupiers took away laptops and phones, hunting for evidence of anti-Moscow activity.