Olha Lukina, 65, raced to the registrar after her granddaughter was delivered. It was the last in Russian-occupied Kherson to grant Ukrainian citizenship to infants.

In May, Kateryna was born during Ukraine’s toughest moments.

Leonid Remyga, the chief doctor at Kherson City Clinical Hospital, the city’s only hospital, claimed Russia afterward forced all infants to get Russian citizenship.

Russia controlled Kherson for eight months last year until Ukrainian forces retook it in November. Several inhabitants returned, but Russian bombardment across the Dnipro River has left Kherson a ghost town.

Ukrainian parents were pressured to give their newborns Russian citizenship early in the occupation. Remyga and Kateryna’s parents, Natalia Lukina and Oleksii Markelov said they were denied diapers and baby food.

It shows how Russian-occupied towns and cities in Ukraine’s east and south had to deal with unexpected and often hazardous changes in norms and expectations.

“If you arrive without Russian birth papers, we will not provide you diapers,” warned 42-year-old Natalia Lukina.

Russians gave most poor wartime parents free diapers. Oleksii Markelov remarked. “Nothing.”

The citizens’ story went unanswered by Russia’s FSB, which enforces laws in occupied Ukraine.

Lukina refused to update her daughter’s birth certificate two months after Russia conquered Kherson.

Reuters saw Kateryna’s justice ministry-stamped Ukrainian documents. The government declined to comment on Kherson during Russian rule.

“We told (Russians) that the kid was born in Ukraine and is Ukrainian, not Russian,” Lukina said in an interview in her small house, where she, Markelov, their three children, and her elderly mother Olha live without electricity or running water.

The residence is 1.5 km (one mile) from the Russian-controlled Dnipro, where forces fire artillery at Kherson daily.

Doctor Remyga stated he followed Ukrainian law early in the occupation until troops fired him on June 7.

“They did such a misinformation campaign, that Russia is here forever,” Remyga told Reuters at the hospital. “But then FSB personnel threatened that if (families) did not get Russian documents they would have issues.”

Remyga says troops hospitalized him for a month in June. The following month, he escaped.

He said FSB operatives detained him on Sept. 20, cuffed him, and put a bag over his head before taking him to an undisclosed detention center to question him.

He stated the cops freed him in early October and forbade him to work at the hospital.

Remyga returned to work on Nov. 12 after Ukraine seized Kherson.

Remyga’s FSB account was unanswered.

Ukrainian hospitals provide a rudimentary medical record of a baby’s birth, but parents must travel to a registered office for a citizenship certificate.

Olena Klimenko, Kherson’s regional registration office chief, claimed many parents postponed visiting Russian-controlled registry offices during the occupation.

Klimenko claimed many parents enrolled their children for Ukrainian citizenship after the occupation. She lacked statistics.

Klimenko claimed Russian authorities documented them, and Ukrainian registration employees did not assist, making it unclear how many newborns obtained Russian citizenship.

Remyga reported that Kherson City Clinical Hospital had 489 births in 2022, down from 1,200 pre-war.

He stated the decline was due to mothers giving birth in Ukrainian-controlled areas or overseas.