The Ukrainian leaders-in-exile of the Kherson region accuse the Russia leaders of drumming up “hysteria” to intimidate the population and enact “voluntary deportations” to Russia, where they’ve been promised help with housing.

“On the one hand, we understand that the Armed Forces of Ukraine will liberate Kherson and the region – accordingly, there may be active hostilities, and this is a risk for the local population,” Yurii Sobolevskyi, deputy head of Ukraine’s regional council for Kherson, told CNN on Wednesday.

“On the other hand, there are no guarantees that the evacuated people will be safe there and far from the front line. Now people make their own decisions – to leave or stay. It is difficult to say what decision they will make.”

The “massive deportation of civilians” by Russia could, along with other alleged abuses, constitute crimes against humanity, according to a July report by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). In September, the UN Security Council also said Russia’s forcible deportation of 2.5 million people from Ukraine – including 38,000 children – constitutes human rights violations.

Ukraine denounced Russia’s “filtration” scheme at a United Nations Security Council meeting last week. Deputy Ukrainian Ambassador to the UN Khrystyna Hayovyshyn said Ukrainians forced to head to Russia or Russian-controlled territory are being killed and tortured.

Hayovyshyn told the Security Council that thousands of Ukrainian citizens are being forcefully deported to “isolated and depressed regions of Siberia and the far east.

Ukrainian citizens are terrorized, under the pretense of a search for “dangerous” people by Russian authorities, Hayovyshyn said. Those who have different political views or are affiliated with the Ukrainian government or media disappear into a gray area. Children are ripped from the arms of their parents, the Ukraine representative declared.

In the heady early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, when confusion reigned, the capture of the southern city of Kherson was a key strategic and propaganda victory for the Kremlin.

On just the seventh day of the war, Kherson’s mayor announced that Russian soldiers had entered his office, and the city had fallen.

Geographically, it was vital: Kherson lies on the mouth of Ukraine’s central artery, the Dnipro River, and not far from the canal that supplies water to Crimea. Ukraine’s government had shut that canal down in 2014, when Russia illegally annexed the peninsula.

It was the first major city Russia captured, and the only regional capital taken since February. (In addition to Crimea, Russian-backed forces have controlled Donetsk and Luhansk cities since 2014.) It’s the second-biggest population center that Russia has captured after Mariupol.

Seventh months later, the Kremlin considers the Kherson region to be part of Russia, after claiming to annex it last month. And yet, everyone from Russia’s designated leaders in the region to the new commander of its entire Ukrainian war effort are sounding the alarm on their ability to withstand a Ukrainian offensive in the region.

Russia’s puppet administration has promised that there is no plan to abandon Kherson city, and that once the military “solve all of the tasks,” normal life will return.

In his remarks on Russian television, Surovikin, the Russian commander, repeated what has become a bit of a trope in Russian circles: That the Ukrainian military was preparing to shell Kherson’s city center, of even to strike the dam that’s part of a hydroelectric plant at Nova Kakhovka, and unleash floodwaters on low-lying areas downstream.

Ukrainian officials have dismissed that idea as Russian propaganda. It will not be easy for Ukraine to retake Kherson city if Russia seriously contests it, and the Ukrainian military will be reluctant to attack an urban center where tens of thousands of civilians could remain.

But Ukraine’s military brass remain bullish over the Kherson offensive.

“We will make significant progress by the end of the year,” the head of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Agency, Major General Kyrylo Budanov, said on Tuesday.

“These will be significant victories. You will see it soon.”