'The enemy is right here' — how Ukrainians living under Russian occupation defied Putin's 'Victory Day'

Editor’s Note: The identities of Yellow Ribbon activists who live in Russian-occupied territory have been withheld for security reasons.

"When my child hears about May 9 they almost scream, and so do I," an activist with the Ukrainian Yellow Ribbon civil resistance group currently living in the Russian-occupied town of Tokmak in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, tells the Kyiv Independent.

"Every week at school, from the very beginning of the semester, my kid has to do something about May 9,'"

"We have learnt all the songs, the Soviet uniform is already lying at home because we were forced to buy it, and every third homework assignment for six months has been about it," they added.

Russia's Victory Day celebrations, which mark the Soviet Union's role in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II, are one of the country's biggest public events of the year.

The annual performance is a key part of Russia's propaganda efforts to justify aggression against what the Kremlin falsely describes as "Nazis" in Ukraine, with the day culminating in a military parade in Moscow's Red Square, and a speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The event's reach also extends to Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories, where Kremlin-installed authorities continue their attempts to "russify" the land and its people.

But across occupied Crimea, and the partially occupied parts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts, activists of the Ukrainian Yellow Ribbon civil resistance movement monitor, report, and defy the Russians.

"This is a way of saying that we are here and we have not surrendered," a Yellow Ribbon activist currently living in Donetsk, under Russian occupation since 2014, tells the Kyiv Independent.

"On the day when the occupiers celebrate a victory that is not ours, people like me remember that the real victory is still ahead, and it will be Ukrainian."

"It may be dangerous, but it's even more frightening to remain silent," they added.

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Acts of resistance come in many shapes and sizes. From a colored ribbon tied to a tree or a flag raised over a remote mountain face, to a quick tip-off on an encrypted app that sets off a chain of events culminating in the destruction of a warship, everything counts. However big or small, whether the impact is military or symbolic, the actions of Ukrainians living in Russian-occupied territories over almost two years of full-scale war have all worked to drive one simple message home: that Russ

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Resistance in Russian-occupied territories is highly dangerous — anyone deemed to be defying the occupying authorities faces the very real possibility of imprisonment and torture.

As such, small acts carried out in relative safety can carry huge significance for those defying the Kremlin.

"Going out is not an option. We downloaded ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and will watch it instead of the Victory Day celebration," the activist in Tokmak said.

In Moscow, amid much pomp, military machinery, and the threat of Ukrainian drone strikes, Putin delivered his annual speech to mark his country's Victory Day parade, but omitted several key things from his version of the events of World War II.

"I am sick and tired of this hypocrisy and brazen Russian propaganda about their 'Russian victory,’" an activist currently living in Melitopol, occupied by Russian forces in 2022, tells the Kyiv Independent.

"We don't want to celebrate at all — the occupiers have distorted the very essence of this day. But for ourselves, we remember the dead, because this is a day of remembrance, not celebration," they added.

Although Putin will never admit it, Ukraine played a hugely significant role on the Soviet Union's defeat of Nazy Germany — at least six million Ukrainians fought in the Soviet army, and though exact numbers are unknown, it's estimated that around 1.65 million of the Ukrainians who fought were killed, the highest number from any of the Soviet republics after Russia itself.

Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, Victory Day — celebrated on May 9 in contrast to May 8 in most of Europe and the U.S. — was a popular occasion.

In 2010, 58% of the population considered it one of the most important public holidays. By 2025, and after 11 years of war, that number has fallen to just 11%. May 8 was officially made a public holiday in Ukraine in 2023, the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation.

An activist currently living in Alchevsk, Luhansk Oblast, occupied by Russia since 2014, said they'd marked the May 8 holiday but said it was "very difficult for us here."

"Because the enemy is right here, and the idea of reconciliation with the enemy is not appropriate now," they said.

"When there is a victory, when there are tanks in Moscow, then maybe in 10 years the idea of ‘reconciliation’ will be perceived normally, but now it is very difficult," they added.

But despite the risks, they are undeterred in their desire to maintain the resistance.

"This is Ukraine. I am Ukrainian, and my parents were Ukrainian. Showing this to the world is the right thing to do, no matter what happens next," they said.

Viktoria, a Ukrainian psychologist living now in Berlin survived weeks of Russian occupation before leaving her home city, Berdiansk, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, in April 2022.

She asked for her last name to be withheld as her relatives still live there. She told the Kyiv Independent her mother is "simply planning to avoid the central streets" during the Victory Day celebrations.

For Ukrainians living under Russian occupation, the holiday has been imposed on them regardless. In occupied Melitopol, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, the Communist Party of Russia unveiled a monument to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

"To the organizer and inspirer of the victory of the Soviet people over the Nazi invaders, Generalissimo of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin, from grateful descendants," a plaque on it reads.

Stalin's legacy in Ukraine is marked by profound suffering. Under his rule, millions of Ukrainians died during the Holodomor, a man-made famine in 1932–1933.

In Russian-occupied Sevastopol, Crimea, schoolchildren have been forced to draw postcards for the Russian military.

Some parents withdrew their children from school rather than allow authorities to make them do it, according to the Yellow Ribbon activists on the peninsula.

The viewing of the parade in Moscow is compulsory viewing for students and staff in schools in the occupied territories of Donetsk Oblast, the Centre of National Resistance reported on May 7.

"I know from my acquaintances that there is a total 'victory frenzy' in schools and kindergartens," a Yellow Ribbon member currently living in Donetsk, under Russian occupation since 2014, tells the Kyiv Independent.

"Children are being trained to march, sing songs about the ‘feats of the grandfathers,’ and prepare performances about the war," they added.

This year is the fourth Victory Day since the start of the full-scale invasion, and resistance to the holiday has been present throughout.

Natalia Shatilova-Pohasiy, is a volunteer and acting head of the Dnipro District Organization of the Ukrainian Red Cross Society in Kherson, a city which was occupied for several months in 2022.

"After 13 March (2022), when Kherson residents marched in columns to the Park of Glory with Ukrainian flags and inscriptions ‘Kherson is Ukraine,' the conscientiousness people did not celebrate Victory Day," she tells the Kyiv Independent.

"On May 9, 2022 we stayed at home so as not to provide a photo opportunity for the Russian media, as well as to not be in danger," she added.

Ukraine has had some success at disrupting Russia's Victory Day — the parade in the occupied Crimean port city of Sevastopol was cancelled over safety concerns, and other events around occupied Ukraine suffered a similar fate.

"A concert in the city centre was promised — a band was supposed to come from (the Russian cities of) Yelabuga and from Tver and at first it should have been obligatory for school children," the activist from Tokmak said.

"But at the last minute, the organizers cancelled, saying something about it being too dangerous."

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The Kyiv IndependentMartin Fornusek