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Russian efforts to embed its occupation of southern Ukraine are being undermined by the populations growing refusal to accept employment at key facilities, including banks, hospitals and heavy industry, i can reveal.

As Kyiv stepped up its efforts to retake the key city of Kherson as part of a long-awaited counter-offensive, evidence is emerging of the Kremlins faltering attempts to normalise life in a region which it is seeking to formally annex as part of Russia.

Moscow last month announced it had opened its first branches of the state-owned Promsvyazbank in the Kherson and neighbouring Zaporizhzhia regions as part of a Russification process which includes requiring Ukrainians to switch from using Kyivs hryvnia currency to the Russian ruble.

But Ukrainian officials claimed on Thursday that the three bank branches are currently able to offer only a partial service after locals refused to accept jobs with the company.

The National Resistance Centre (NRC), which coordinates partisan activity in occupied territory, said the problems at the bank branches in Kherson were part of a wider problem which is forcing the puppet administration put in place by the Kremlin to abandon plans to accept only Russian qualifications and permits.

The NRC said: It should be noted that the shortage of workers in the occupied territories due to the reluctance of locals to cooperate forced the Russians to recognise Ukrainian qualification certificates and work [permits].

A charity operating in Crimea, the region annexed by Moscow in 2014, and southern Ukraine earlier this month said it had evidence of a massive boycott by doctors in the Kherson region.

Crimea SOS said medics were applying en masse for extended leave or simply resigning from their jobs to avoid cooperating with the Russian military while at the same time many pharmacies in Kherson were closed, creating a black market in medications brought in from Russia. Deny Savchenko, head of the charity, said: Doctors in Kherson are massively refusing to cooperate with the occupiers.

Similar issues also appear to be affecting heavy industry in southern Ukraine. Ukrainian media reported last month that attempts by Russia to reopen a major iron ore works in Zaporizhzhia floundered after employees refused to sign contracts offering work at 60 per cent of their previous wage.

In the devastated city of Mariupol, an adviser to its exiled Ukrainian mayor this week insisted staff at a major steel work were staging a silent rebellion. Writing on the Telegram social media site, Petro Andriushchenko said: At the Illich Steel and Iron Works, workers staged a silent rebellion, refusing to go into the [factory].

The boycotts have provoked a blame game between Moscow and Kyiv over the motivation behind the refusal to work. A Moscow-appointed official in Kherson has previously claimed that many Ukrainian personnel are staying away because of a threat from Kyiv of prosecutions for anyone found to be collaborating with the occupying forces.

Kirill Stremousov, who is deputy head of the Kremlin-backed administration in Kherson and is wanted for treason by Kyiv, claimed staff were living in fear of proceedings. The official on Thursday doubled down on promises to hold a referendum on secession from Ukraine, telling Russian media: I hope that in the near future already we will become a full-fledged territorial entity of the Russian Federation.

For its part, Ukraine has insisted that civil disobedience is motivated by disdain for the occupying forces. The NRC said: Non-violent resistance in the temporarily occupied territories is developing exponentially. People have mastered various methods of resistance, including silent refusal to work in seized enterprises.

Experts said that the intensity of subversive action against the Russians in southern Ukraine is in part dependent on the perceived likelihood of success for Kyiv in seizing back territory, in particular around Kherson City where Ukrainian forces succeeded on Thursday in destroying the citys sole road bridge across the Dnipro river. Kyiv said the strike using the American HIMARS missile system would hobble the Kremlins efforts to resupply its troops, though Moscow insisted it could instead use ferry routes and a railway bridge.

Professor Alexander Motyl, a Ukraine specialist at Rutgers University Newark, told i: Resistance will be high and collaboration low if the population expects Ukrainian armed forces to advance, as they currently do. Increased Russian repression will only increase resistance under such conditions.

Kherson is a key strategic asset for both sides in the war, with Russia holding it as a gateway for attacks towards the vital port of Odesa and Ukraine seeking its recapture as a route towards Crimea and the east of the country.

Kyiv has been quietly waging a partisan campaign in occupied southern cities such as Kherson and Melitopol, targeting Moscow-appointed officials. In the latest attack, Ukraine claimed this week that it had targeted two men recruited to work for the Russian-led police force in Kherson City, killing one and injuring another in an attack on a marked police car.

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Putin's occupation falters as Ukrainian workers boycott key jobs - iNews