Here’s a little video from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) about some of the “Russification” actions happening in the occupied regions of Ukraine. The video starts in Mariupol, but also has some views/discussion of events in Kherson. These events are happening all over the regions, though some such events had already happened in the parts of Luhansk and Donetsk that were captured back in 2014.

The one thing I’m not really clear on from the video is the passports. Ukraine has two passports — a domestic version, which is an internal identity document, and an international version, which is the passport Americans are familiar with. I know from past reporting, that Russia issued domestic passports in Luhansk and Donetsk, which makes sense from an occupation standpoint. However, such passports are typically issued locally, because they serve as a registry of residence and population. In the video, a person talks about people going to Crimea to get their new passports, which doesn’t really make sense if these are the domestic passports. To my mind, that’s one way to make sure that people won’t get them — destroy their city and then require them to go somewhere else (probably at their own expense) to get your new identity documents.

Edit: Well bummer, I could get the video embedded here, so I guess I’ll just provide a link to it:‘Russification’ Begins With Big Screens, Passports In Occupied Areas Of Ukraine. It’s short, just under 2 minutes.