[3] Russia laid the groundwork for annexation in the following months by introducing the Russian ruble as official currency and forcibly removing the hryvnia from circulation.

During the 2014 occupation of Crimea, Russian forces also occupied a gas distribution centre at the town of Strilkove on the Arabat spit in Kherson Oblast, from 15 March.

[12][13] In December 2014, they left territories of Kherson, including the area of Strilkove, the Ad peninsula [uk], and the village of Chonhar.

Additionally, cars were only allowed to enter the city to supply food and medicine; these vehicles were to drive at minimum speeds and were subject to searches.

[25] On 9 March, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces stated that Russia had detained more than 400 people in Kherson due to ongoing protests.

[34] On 22 March, the Ukrainian government warned Kherson was facing a "humanitarian catastrophe" as the city was running out of food and medical supplies and accused Russia of blocking evacuation of civilians to Ukraine-controlled territory.

[47] The next day, Ukraine's Prosecutor General said that troops used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse a pro-Ukraine protest in the city centre.

[52] In an indication of an intended split from Ukraine, on 28 April the new military-civilian administration announced that from May it would switch the region's currency to the Russian ruble.

Additionally, citing unnamed reports that alleged discrimination against Russian speakers, its deputy head, Kirill Stremousov said that "reintegrating the Kherson region back into a Nazi Ukraine is out of the question".

[64] An elected official in Russia named Igor Kastyukevich had discussed this plan on 7 June, following the visit to Kherson of Sergei Kiriyenko, the deputy chief of staff of the Russian presidential administration.

[63][65] On 3 June, the EU stated that it would not recognize any Russian passports issued to Ukrainian citizens in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

[67][68] On 24 June, Dmytro Savluchenko, who led the Directorate for Family, Youth, and Sports of the Russian occupation administration, was assassinated by the explosion of a car bomb.

[69] On 29 June 2022, Stremousov said that "The Kherson region will decide to join the Russian Federation and become a full-fledged subject as one unified state.

[71] On 5 July, Volodymyr Saldo announced that the former deputy head of government in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad Sergei Yeliseyev, a graduate of the FSB Academy, was to assume the presidency of the oblast.

[72][73] On 10 July, Iryna Vereshchuk, the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine urged civilians in the Kherson region to evacuate ahead of a future Ukrainian counteroffensive.

[83] The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling on countries not to recognise what it described as an "attempted illegal annexation" and demanded that Russia "immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw.

"[84][85] However, in early October 2022, the Russian defensive lines in the northern parts of the oblast collapsed, leading to more Ukrainian progress.

[88] Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the status of the Kherson region as a "subject of the Russian Federation" remained "unchanged" despite the withdrawal.

[116] An allegedly leaked letter described Russian plans to unleash a "great terror" to suppress protests occurring in Kherson, stating that people would "have to be taken from their homes in the middle of the night".

[117] Ukrainians who escaped from occupied Kherson into Ukrainian-controlled territory provided testimonies of torture, abuse and kidnapping by Russian forces in the region.

[118] An investigation by BBC News gathered evidence of torture, which in addition to beatings also included electrocution and burns on people's hands and feet.

[121] On 22 July 2022, Human Rights Watch reported that Russian forces had tortured, unlawfully detained, and forcibly disappeared civilians in the occupied areas of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

The purpose of the abuse seemed to be to obtain information and to instil fear so that people would accept the occupation, as Russia seeks to assert sovereignty over occupied territory in violation of international law.

According to the investigation, during a rally on 6 March, the Russian military opened fire on protesters indiscriminately "despite the fact that people were unarmed and did not pose any threat," resulting in at least one death and seven injuries.

[126] The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars reports that medical workers in Kherson refused to go to work, in order to boycott Russian occupation forces and not treat their injured.

[127] According to Nezavisimaya Gazeta, the activities of the Russian-installed Salvation Committee for Peace and Order encounter constant resistance among the population, and a number of its members were killed by Chief Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) or Ukrainian partisans.

[129] Guided by contacts in Ukrainian security services, many ordinary citizens in Kherson City formed "a grass-roots resistance movement", becoming anti-occupation partisans.

[130] On 20 April, regional media from Odesa reported that pro-Russian blogger Valery Kuleshov had been killed by Ukrainian partisans in Kherson.

[131] On 6 August, deputy head of the Russian administration in Nova Kakhovka, Vitaly Gura, was shot dead in his home.