KRYVYI RIH, Ukraine \u2014 The solicitation to commit treason came to Oleksandr Vilkul on the second day of the war, in a phone call from an old colleague.<\/p>\n
Mr. Vilkul, the scion of a powerful political family in southeastern Ukraine that was long seen as harboring pro-Russian views, took the call as Russian troops were advancing to within a few miles of his hometown, Kryvyi Rih.<\/p>\n
\n
\u201cHe said, ‘Oleksandr Yurivich, you are looking at the map, you see the situation is predetermined,’\u201d Mr. Vilkul said, recalling the conversation with a fellow minister in a former, pro-Russian Ukrainian government.<\/p>\n
\u201cSign an agreement of friendship, cooperation and defense with Russia and they will have good relations with you,\u201d the former colleague said. \u201cYou will be a big person in the new Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n
The offer failed spectacularly. Once war had begun, Mr. Vilkul said, the gray area seeped out of Ukrainian politics for him. Missiles striking his hometown made the obvious choice: He would fight back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI responded with profanity,\u201d Mr. Vilkul said in an interview.<\/p>\nWomen sew camouflage uniforms at a garment workshop in Kryvyi Rih. It has shifted to produce military supplies including uniforms, body armor and medical stretchers.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>David Guttenfelder for The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
If the first months of the war in Ukraine became a military debacle for the Russian army \u2014 deflating the reputations of its commanders and troops in a forced retreat from Kyiv \u2014 the Russian invasion also highlighted another glaring failure: Moscow’s flawed analysis of the politics of the country it was attacking. The miscalculation led to mistakes no less costly in lives for the Russian army than the faulty tactics of tank operators who steered into bogs.<\/p>\n
The Kremlin entered the war expecting a quick and painless victory, predicting that the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky would fracture and that leading officials in the largely Russian-speaking eastern region would gladly switch sides. That has not happened.<\/p>\n
The political myopia was most significant in the country’s east, political analysts say.<\/p>\n
In all but a tiny number of villages, Russia failed to flip local politicians to its side. The Ukrainian authorities have opened 38 cases of treason, all targeting low level officials in individual instances of betrayal.<\/p>\nIryna Prokopenko picking out a winter coat at a community arts center now providing humanitarian assistance to evacuees in Kryvyi Rih.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>David Guttenfelder for The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u201cNobody wanted to be part of that thing behind the wall,\u201d said Kostyantyn Usov, a former member of Parliament from Kryvyi Rih, referring to Russia’s isolated, authoritarian system.<\/p>\n
He said that system had dismal appeal in Ukraine and noted the absence of widespread collaboration with Russia, including among Ukrainians who speak Russian and share the country’s cultural values.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are part of something bright,\u201d he said of Ukraine. \u201cIt is here, with us, in our group. And they have nothing to offer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other prominent, once Russian-leaning politicians including Ihor Terekhov, the mayor of Kharkiv, and Hennady Trukhanov, the mayor of Odesa, also remained loyal and became fierce defenders of their cities.<\/p>\n
Along with leaders in the southeast, Ukrainian people also resisted. Street protests against occupation in Kherson continue despite lethal dangers for participants. One man stood in front of a tank. Kryvyi Rih’s miners and steelworkers have shown no signs of pivoting allegiance to Russia.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore the war, we had ties to Russia,\u201d said Serhiy Zhyhalov, 36, a steel mill engineer, referring to familial, linguistic and cultural bonds. But no longer, he said. \u201cNo one has any doubts that Russia attacked us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ukraine’s southeastern regions, an expanse of steppe and blighted industrial and mining cities, is now the focus of fighting in the war.<\/p>\n
Driving south from Kyiv, the highway leaves behind the dense pine forests and reedy swamps of Ukraine, and the landscape opens into expansive plains. Farm fields stretch out to the horizons, in brilliant, yellow blossoming rapeseed or tilled black earth.<\/p>\n
In many ways, the region is entwined with Soviet and Russian history. The iron and coal industries shaped southeastern Ukraine. In and around the city of Kryvyi Rih are iron ore deposits; The coal is farther east, near the city of Donetsk.<\/p>\nSteel workers on the grounds of the ArcelorMittal steel plant in Kryvyi Rih.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>David Guttenfelder for The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The two mineral basins, known as the Kryvbas and the Donbas, gave birth to a metallurgical industry that drew in many nationalities from around the Czarist and Soviet empires from the late 19th century onward, with Russian becoming the lingua franca in the mining towns. Villages remained mostly Ukrainian speaking.<\/p>\n
The region for years such Russian-leaning politicians as Mr. Vilkul, a favorite villain to Ukrainian nationalists for promoting Soviet-style cultural events that angered many Ukrainians. He staged, for example, a singalong party in Kryvyi Rih to belt out \u201cKatyusha,\u201d a Russian song associated with the Soviet World War II victory.<\/p>\n
More substantively, Mr. Vilkul ascended in politics under the former, pro-Russian president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, in whose government he served as deputy prime minister until the street protesters deposed Mr. Yanukovych in 2014.<\/p>\n
Much of the rest of Mr. Yanukovych’s cabinet fled with him to Russia. But Mr. Vilkul remained in Ukraine as a de facto political boss of Kryvyi Rih while his aging father served as the city’s mayor.<\/p>\n
And he caught Moscow’s eye. In 2018, Mr. Vilkul said in the interview, he was told through an intermediary that \u201cthe time of chaos is over\u201d and that he should now follow orders from Moscow if he wished to remain in politics in the southeast. He said he refused.<\/p>\n
The Russians, he said, had not even bothered to court him, they only leveled demands. He said Moscow took the same approach to other politicians in Ukraine’s east. \u201cThey didn’t even try to convince us,\u201d he said. \u201cThey just thought we would be, a priori, on their side.\u201d<\/p>\nWorkers wearing fire protective gear toil on the maintenance of the blast furnace at the ArcelorMittal plant.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>David Guttenfelder for The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
On the eve of the war, Mr. Vilkul was most likely the Russian-leaning politician in Ukraine with the broadest popular support. \u201cI was alone on this level,\u201d he said. He was also viewed by Moscow as a promising potential convert to its side when it invaded Ukraine.<\/p>\n
That’s when the call came to Mr. Vilkul’s cellphone from Vitaly Zakharchenko, a Ukrainian in exile in Russia who had served as interior minister under Mr. Vilkul in Mr. Yanukovych’s government. He recommended Mr. Vilkul cooperate with the Russians.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told him to get lost,\u201d Mr. Vilkul said. “I didn’t even consider it.”<\/p>\n
Mr. Vilkul said he had been misunderstood \u2014 by Russia’s leadership and his nationalist opposition at home. A great-grandfather, he said, had fought White Russians in the civil war. The Vilkul family, he said, \u201chas been fighting Russians on this land for a hundred years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Kremlin, he said, had misinterpreted his respect for World War II veterans and support for rights of Russian speakers as potential support for a renewed Russian empire, something he said was a a. He called the Russians “classic megalomaniacs.”<\/p>\nMr. Vilkul greeting children on Saturday at a school that is being used to house evacuees.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>David Guttenfelder for The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u201cThey mistook common language and values \u200b\u200blike attitudes to the Second World War and Orthodoxy as a sign that somebody loves them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A second offer, this time presented publicly by another Ukrainian exile, Oleh Tsaryov, in a post on Telegram, came about a week later, when Russian troops had advanced to within six miles of the city. \u201cMy fellow party members and I have always taken a pro-Russian stance,\u201d the post said, referring to Mr. Vilkul and his father, and added ominously that \u201ccooperation with the Russian army means preserving the city and lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Vilkul responded with an obscene post on Facebook.<\/p>\n
On the first days of the invasion, Mr. Vilkul ordered the region’s mining companies to park heavy equipment on the runway of the city’s airport, thwarting an airborne assault, and on approach roads, slowing tank columns. The tires were then popped and engines disabled.<\/p>\n
The city’s steel industry began to turn out tank barriers and plates for armored vests. Mr. Zelensky, whose hometown is Kryvyi Rih, appointed Mr. Vilkul military governor of the city on the third day of the war, though the two had been political opponents in peacetime.<\/p>\n
Mr. Vilkul has taken to wearing fatigues and a camouflage bandanna. A parade of Ukrainian nationalists, including the leader of the Right Sector paramilitary, Dmytro Yarosh, and a prominent activist and military officer, Tetiana Chernovol, once sworn enemies of the Vilkul family, have shown up in his office to shake his hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we fight the Russians,\u201d he said, \u201cwere we ever really pro-Russian, in essence?\u201d<\/p>\n
Maria Varenikova contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n