‘Humiliated’ and ‘harassed’: Ukrainians recount life under occupation

The Ukrainian army retook Vysokopillya and three other villages on September 12, during a major counter-offensive on the southern front

Surrounded by kittens unmoved by the far-off sounds of war, 72-year-old Maria Syzhuk recalled the terror she lived through during Russia's six-month occupation of her village in southern Ukraine.

"They robbed and humiliated us," she told AFP journalists on a Ukrainian army tour of the settlement recaptured earlier this month.

The empty streets of Vysokopillya in the Kherson region echo with the dull thuds of artillery from both sides — mostly in the distance, but sometimes a little too close.

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Ms. Syzhuk was one among a handful of the village's 4,000 residents who stayed throughout Russia's hold on the area after it invaded Ukraine in late February.

Now the Ukrainian army has retaken control of her village, she is brimming with anger at its former occupiers.

In one incident, she claimed, Russian forces killed civilians — a couple — who refused to give them their car.