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While much of the fighting in Ukraine is concentrated in the city of Sievierodonetsk, one U.S. official is highlighting the situation in the nearby city of Kherson, near the Crimean Peninsula, for its depravity.
The U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Michael Carpenter, described what he called “the Kremlin’s laboratories of horror” in the city of Kherson, and he warned about Russia attempting to hold a “sham referendum” to absorb the city into Russia.
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“Kherson in particular has become part of what I’ve called the Kremlin’s laboratory of horrors,” he told reporters on Friday. “This is where we’re seeing the Kremlin executing on their playbook of trying to absorb Ukraine into Russia. And we’ve seen elements of this playbook before. So some of this is sadly quite familiar.”
Carpenter, who has previously warned about the possibility that Russia could hold such a referendum, noted that his office still anticipates Russia will make that move when the time is right.
“We still believe that the Kremlin is waiting for an opportunity to try to annex the Kherson region to Russia,” he explained. “We believe a sham referendum is one possibility. Another is to have one of the Kremlin’s proxies in the region petition Moscow for annexation. So to be perfectly clear, the population of Kherson wants absolutely nothing to do with the brutal occupation regime that Russia is trying to impose. So for now, Russia is still in the process of trying to create the conditions on the ground for a future move towards annexation.”
Roughly 600 people have been detained in the region, and they are being held in “specially equipped basements that basically serve as torture chambers,” Carpenter added, going as far as to name the “precise locations” of two of them, though the Washington Examiner couldn’t independently verify the claim.
Detainees include democratically elected local officials, journalists, and activists whom Russian forces have identified as having participated in rallies against Russian occupation.
The Russian military is also changing the way people’s lives operate in the Kherson region. The occupiers have sought to manipulate internet access, broadcast Russian state television, and are pressuring principals to implement a Russian-based curriculum in schools. Kherson residents are also forced to use Russian currency and register their commercial properties with the new puppet administration, he said.
Carpenter also said that Kherson residents are forced to go through a “filtration process” that can include “several days of detention and interrogation by Russian military and security forces before Russian forces ultimately determine who to kill, torture, detain indefinitely, or forcibly deport to Russia.”
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“While it ‘filters the local population,’ Russia simultaneously blocks escape routes to government-controlled areas, leaving residents a tough choice between either to remain in siegelike conditions where they are or to be forcibly relocated to Russia,” he said.
In addition to the Russians’ actions in Kherson, investigators have opened more than 1,100 cases into Ukrainian leaders for allegedly committing “crimes against peace,” which some Western world leaders have denounced.
