Coercion, Resistance and Security

Control over the population is the precondition for any lasting occupation, and Russia's occupation of Ukraine has been, from the outset, a project of political and security control over people who largely refused to accept it. Because a significant share of residents never regarded Russian authority as legitimate, the occupier has had to build — and continually upgrade — an apparatus of coercion: filtration and screening, mass detention, forced passportisation, denunciation systems and, increasingly, digital surveillance and artificial intelligence. The scale of that apparatus is itself evidence; an occupation genuinely welcomed would not require it.

Resistance has evolved in step with repression, through three broad phases. In spring 2022 the occupied south saw some of the largest non-violent protests in modern Europe under military occupation, as thousands in Kherson, Melitopol, Berdiansk and elsewhere took to the streets. When Russia answered with abductions, torture and filtration, open protest gave way to sabotage, attacks on collaborators and an emerging underground. By 2024–2025, with the repressive machine far stronger, resistance turned largely clandestine — gathering intelligence, documenting war crimes and guiding precision strikes on Russian military infrastructure.

How people continue to transmit information and self-organise is, in large part, a story of adaptation: VPNs, messaging apps, family ties and decentralised networks that make total isolation impossible, sustained by horizontal structures that often operate without direct state support. And what residents think about resistance and their future is inseparable from what they can see — visible Ukrainian strikes, the elimination of key occupation figures, and signals that Kyiv has not written them off all help sustain the willingness to accept personal risk.

This theme treats the occupation not as a static condition but as a continuous contest between an increasingly sophisticated system of coercion and a society still searching for ways to preserve its identity, its connections and its prospect of return.

Questions we ask

1. How does Russia maintain control and punish disloyalty in the occupied territories?
2. How does Ukrainian resistance change under the pressure of repression?
3. How do people continue to transmit information and self-organise?
4. What do residents of the occupied territories themselves think about resistance and their own future?

The full picture

Control over the population is a fundamental prerequisite for any long-term occupation. From the very beginning, therefore, Russia's occupation of Ukrainian territories evolved as a project of political, administrative and security control over people. Because of a major miscalculation at the outset of the full-scale invasion, Russia encountered a problem it had clearly underestimated: a significant share of the population did not perceive Russian authority as legitimate and, in one form or another, began to resist.

To establish total control, the Russians implemented mass filtration and screening. These measures varied with the perceived level of threat and the method of occupation — through active combat, as in Mariupol and Volnovakha, or through relatively peaceful seizure, as in Melitopol and Kherson — but pursued the same objective: to identify and neutralise politically active individuals who might become organisers or participants in resistance. From March 2022, Russia established a system of so-called "filtration" of the civilian population of Mariupol, which became a mandatory condition for many residents seeking to leave the city; the procedures included phone inspections, interrogations, biometric data collection, photographing and the gathering of personal information.¹ According to Mariupol's mayor, more than 10,000 residents were being held in the city's filtration centres by mid-2022, detained as individuals deemed potentially dangerous to the occupation regime.²

In March 2022, Melitopol became one of the centres of mass non-violent resistance, as thousands protested against the occupation despite the presence of Russian troops. After its attempts to quickly legitimise the occupation failed, Russia shifted to violent suppression — stun grenades, the abduction of activists and systematic repression.³ For this reason, the history of the occupation is simultaneously the history of the evolution of Russia's system of coercion and of Ukrainian resistance.

Phase one. Mass non-violent resistance. In spring 2022, the occupied territories became the site of some of the largest non-violent protests in modern Europe under conditions of military occupation. In Kherson, Melitopol, Berdiansk, Kakhovka, Enerhodar and other cities, thousands gathered in public squares carrying Ukrainian flags and demanding that Russian troops leave.⁴ In Melitopol, protests continued for nearly three weeks; in Kherson, demonstrations drew thousands even after the occupiers used stun grenades and fired warning shots.⁵ This became one of Russia's greatest surprises: the Kremlin had expected to establish control quickly and for the population to adapt, and instead met mass civic resistance.

Phase two. Repression and active resistance. After failing to legitimise the occupation quickly, Russia turned to systematic repression — mass abductions, unlawful detentions, torture, filtration, forced passportisation and a system of total surveillance. According to the United Nations, numerous facilities for the unlawful detention of civilians operate in the occupied territories, where torture and psychological pressure are systematically employed.⁶ Resistance transformed in turn: open protest became almost impossible and gave way to sabotage, the disruption of logistics and attacks on occupation officials. In Mariupol, Melitopol and Berdiansk, dozens of attacks on occupation administrations and security structures took place during 2022–2023,⁷ and it was in this period that the underground movement began to take shape.

Phase three. Non-public resistance. By 2024–2025, Russia's repressive apparatus had strengthened significantly, relying increasingly on forced passportisation, digital surveillance, phone inspections, denunciation systems and the criminalisation of any manifestation of disloyalty. Human Rights Watch states explicitly that forced passportisation has become one of the key instruments of political coercion against the population.⁸ Ukrainian resistance again adapted; its primary activities became information gathering, the documentation of war crimes, the transmission of intelligence on troop movements, logistics monitoring and support for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. These networks now provide a significant share of the information available about the occupied territories and facilitate precision strikes on Russian military infrastructure.⁹

Despite more than three years of occupation, the population continues to maintain contact with Ukraine through VPN services, messaging applications, family ties and decentralised networks. The foundation for sustaining resistance remains the systematic identification and exploitation of vulnerabilities in Russia's security system, the use of creative communication methods and the advantages of globalisation, which make complete isolation impossible.

Adaptation to life under occupation does not necessarily mean political loyalty: obtaining a Russian passport or accepting employment under the occupation administration is often merely a survival strategy. Pro-Ukrainian residents continue their activities while relying on horizontally organised networks, at times without direct state support or volunteer assistance. Their motivation to resist, and their willingness to accept personal risk, are sustained by the visible results the Armed Forces of Ukraine achieve in striking military infrastructure and eliminating key political and military figures, and by signals from Ukraine's leadership that it has not abandoned those under occupation through compromise arrangements with Russia.

For this reason, Russia is compelled to strengthen and modernise its systems of coercion continuously — from checkpoints and filtration procedures to total surveillance, video monitoring and artificial intelligence. If the occupation genuinely enjoyed public support, there would be no need for such a large-scale repressive apparatus. The occupation remains not a static condition but a continuous conflict between an increasingly sophisticated system of coercion and a society that continues to seek ways to preserve its identity, its connections and its prospects for returning to Ukraine.