MELITOPOL, May 5. /TASS/. Residents of the Kiev-controlled city of Zaporozhye are subject to regular harassment and persecution for using the Russian language, Vladimir Rogov, chairman of the We Are Together With Russia movement, told TASS on Friday.

According to him, dozens of such cases have occurred over the past two weeks. Earlier, on his Telegram channel, he posted a video of Ukrainian police officers detaining a man on the street simply for speaking Russian. According to the politician, this happened in Zaporozhye.

"I am aware of at least several dozen such cases over the past week-and-a-half or two weeks. People are trying to interact as little as possible with [the police] or to avoid them altogether, and are crossing to the other side [of the street] if they see people in uniform. This was a public incident. It occurred downtown near the Maly Market and drew close scrutiny by a lot of people who happened to witness it," he commented in a video.

Rogov attributed such actions by the Kiev regime to a strategy of "keeping Zaporozhye residents in a state of constant stress." "They have begun to pick on them over their native Russian language, which they’ve speaking and thinking in their entire lives," he pointed out. The politician suspects that the local population is too intimidated to stage mass protests or rallies. "It is necessary to understand that the people are tense, worn out, and are waiting for the liberation [of the city by Russian forces]," he noted.

Rogov also highlighted that in the event of a rally, the residents could well run up against extrajudicial repression or reprisals by the municipal authorities. "This could involve demands to quit their jobs, or depriving them of some social benefits, as well as preventive measures by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), or, in the case of men, being sent to the frontline," he said.