The Shelled Public and The Dead Also Shelled

In Mykolaiv, the dead — both soldier and civilian — are arriving at the city morgue in such numbers that they are wrapped only in sheets or rugs, and placed side-by-side or piled in the hallways.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

The New York Times

In Melitopol, hundreds of residents demonstrated in the streets, one day after Russian troops forced a hood over the mayor’s head and dragged him from a government building, according to Ukrainian officials.

“Return the mayor!” the protesters shouted, according to witnesses and videos. “Free the mayor!”

But nearly as soon as the demonstrators gathered, Russian military personnel moved to shut them down, arresting a woman who they said had organized the protest, according to two witnesses and the woman’s Facebook account.

The episode was part of what Ukrainian officials said was an escalating pattern of intimidation and repression. It also illustrated a problem that Russia is likely to face even if it manages to pummel cities and towns into submission: In at least some of the few cities and towns that Russia has managed to seize — mostly in the south and east — they are facing popular unrest and revolt.

Mr. Zelensky sought to tap into a public rage in an address to the nation overnight. 

Residents of an apartment complex in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, that was damaged in an early-morning bombing on Saturday.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

 

  

“The whole country saw that Melitopol did not surrender to the invaders,” he said. “Just as Kherson, Berdyansk and other cities where Russian troops managed to enter didn’t.” He said that popular resistance “will not be changed by putting pressure on mayors or kidnapping mayors.”

Melitopol’s mayor, Ivan Fyodorov, had remained stubbornly defiant even after Russian soldiers took over the city after a fierce assault on the first day of the invasion. “We are not cooperating with the Russians in any way,” he had said.

Russian tanks moving down the streets near Mariupol, Ukraine, on Friday.Credit...Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press

Last weekend, with Mr. Fyodorov’s encouragement, people waving Ukrainian flags took to the streets of Melitopol and other occupied cities. For the most part, Russian soldiers stood aside, even as protesters commandeered a Russian armored vehicle in one town and drove it through the streets. 

While the protests in Melitopol were quickly put down, the Ukrainian government renewed efforts to bring aid to Mariupol, dispatching dozens of buses with food and medicine, Ukrainian officials said.

Similar relief efforts had failed in recent days as fighting raged around the city and land mines pocked roads in the area. In an overnight address, Mr. Zelensky said that the inability to bring aid to the city showed that Russian troops “continue to torture our people, our Mariupol residents.”

Still, he said, “We will try again.”

Marc Santora reported from Lviv, Ukraine, Michael Schwirtz from Mykolaiv, Ukraine, and Michael Levenson from New York. Reporting was contributed by Andrew E. Kramer in Kyiv, Ukraine, Ivan Nechepurenko in Istanbul and Norimitsu Onishi in Paris.