In Mariupol, speaking out can be deadly.
Vladimir Putin's forces captured the city on Ukraine's Black Sea coast in the early stages of their full-scale invasion.
Life there has changed significantly for the residents who remained.
To keep their homes and access to basic services — including healthcare — they've been forced to become Russian citizens.
Some Ukrainian men have even been recruited to fight for Moscow's military.
Accurate accounts of what life is like inside Mariupol today are scarce, with many people terrified that speaking the truth will draw recriminations from their new Russian overlords.
Some have chosen to do it anyway.
Larisa spoke to the ABC through a third party. Some details about her life and family, including her last name, have not been included in this story to protect her identity.
She said the only way to survive in Mariupol now was to become Russian.
"To save our property we have to receive a Russian passport; we cannot receive any medical treatment without it," she said.
"We cannot work, have jobs and receive salaries without Russian passports."
She described Mariupol as "now part of Russia" and says there are "ears and eyes everywhere" which make it very dangerous to criticise Mr Putin or the Kremlin.
"Many new people are coming from Siberia or even [the] Far East; they buy the real estate that once used to be the property of Ukrainians," she said.
The siege of Mariupol in the early days of the war is seared into the hearts and minds of Ukrainians and people from around the world.
Just days after Russia's invasion on February 24, 2022, the port city was under relentless shelling and found itself surrounded by Kremlin forces.
Russia has controlled Mariupol for around three years.
Ukrainians still living in the city say they have been cut off from the outside world due to Russia's censored media environment.
When Mariupol was under siege, 49-year-old Natalia and her family lived in their basement using fire to cook their food and radiators to source hot water.
They escaped in late March 2022 but returned a year and a half later to care for stranded elderly relatives.
They took Russian passports in 2023 because without them they couldn't access healthcare, medicine or take possession of their own home.
"There are lot of newcomers of different nationalities in Mariupol these days," Natalia told the ABC.
"The medical service is much worse; there are long lines everywhere."
Natalia also said Russia was holding "patriotic demonstrations" in the city and that in schools, students were being taught the Russian language and history.
"There are lots of events in town meant to bring up patriots. They constantly play adverts on TV on recruiting contract soldiers for the army and schools have many events teaching lessons of historical glory," she said.
She said the Young Army Movement — an organisation set up by presidential decree 10 years ago and designed to give Russia's youth military training — was active in the community, working with schools and sporting groups to promote Moscow's messaging.
Natalia is trying to sell her apartment but is finding it difficult securing the documents needed to comply with the laws Russia has imposed.
?"There is no future in Mariupol, I don't see it. If we manage to sell our property, we'll move," she said.
"For now, we're still registering our documents, we don't know how long it will take."
Russia uses 'simple' scheme to take homes
An estimated 350,000 residents fled Mariupol to escape Russian occupation, leaving their homes and possessions behind.
But millions of Ukrainians are still living in territories occupied by Kremlin forces.
Far from the frontline, Moscow is fighting a very different skirmish.
After destroying villages and cities during its invasion and the battles that followed, it's now using social media influencers to fight its propaganda war from inside occupied territories like Mariupol.
This video, posted by a young influencer and liked more than 20,000 times, promotes Russia's rebuilding of Mariupol.
The man says, sarcastically: "Oh God, what are Russians doing with Mariupol! Take a look, it's a house being built, not demolished!
"Right, aha, they are building houses, look at the builders over there."
In his account biography, the man references the Donetsk People's Republic, which was an illegitimate state created by Russian-backed paramilitary groups in south-eastern Ukraine in the years before they were invaded by Mr Putin.
Another video on Instagram provides a tour inside a new apartment building in Mariupol, spruiking a new borough Moscow claims to have built in the city.
"Amazing flats, wonderful houses, stunning backyards, plenty of playgrounds, sportsgrounds, you have everything you need," the man filming it says.
Meanwhile, this post with more than 30,000 likes flicks through pictures showing parts of the city destroyed during Russia's invasion contrasted with images of new construction.
Elina Beketova, from the Washington DC-based Centre for European Policy Analysis, has created a database tracking what goes on inside occupied parts of Ukraine including how homes are being seized by Russian authorities.
"So how is Moscow doing it? The scheme is simple. They label housing as ownerless and nationalise it," she said.
"To prevent this, property owners must first obtain a Russian passport and then confirm ownership of the property in person.
"Without this confirmation, the property is transferred to municipal ownership before being auctioned, rented or given to local citizens who are loyal to the occupiers."
Ms Beketova has discovered that the scheme offers Russian citizens very cheap loans of 2 per cent to encourage them to populate the captured territories.
The scale of the property transfer is believed to be more than 5,000 in Mariupol and some reports suggest it tallies up to hundreds of thousands across all Russian captured territories.
Andrii Pazushko and Liudmyla Zavaliei are among the thousands of Ukrainians finding out their home could be seized.
The couple fled Mariupol with their two children and dog on March 16, 2022, deciding it was no longer safe to stay.
With nothing but a tiny suitcase full of their most valuable treasures, they passed through 21 Russian checkpoints to reach safety.
"We witnessed a disaster. We were forced to leave Mariupol. We wouldn't peacefully live with Russians since we were part of the pro-Ukrainian volunteer movement," Liudmyla said.
"Our lives would be at risk, that's why we had to leave."
Their home was partially destroyed when their neighbourhood came under heavy shelling.
Now living in Kyiv, the couple are worried their home could be taken.
"After the Russians rushed into Mariupol, they started claiming all the housing as theirs. They started changing ownerships and appropriating the housing," Andrii said.
Liudmyla's father is currently living in their home, but she fears it will soon be confiscated.
"I can't get the house back, 'legalise it', as Russians say, and prove it as my property despite my father living here right now," she said.
She said because her Ukrainian documents aren't accepted, she has to present to a Russian consulate outside her country or return to Mariupol, which she fears would lead to her detention.
"It's not just confiscation, it's also theft. They steal people's property, refusing to return and threatening their lives, blackmailing them," Liudmyla said.
Moscow is also using various forms of so-called "Russification" to erase Ukrainian culture.
"They are militarising education, creating different camps that are very militarised, ideological, propagandist camps … to force teenagers to believe that they are with the Russian world, that their motherland is Russia," Ms Beketova said.
She said Moscow had allocated more than $1 billion this year to "patriotic education" in Russia and that much of that is being spent in schools within occupied Ukrainian territories.
"They want to control the local population; they want to control teenagers," Ms Beketova said.
"They basically take kids and teenagers from occupied territories, they bring them to Moscow and St Petersburg, they show them some local museums, cultural centres.
"But it's all done with the aim to erase their Ukrainian identity."
Ms Beketova said between 55,000 and 60,000 Ukrainian men from the occupied territories had been "forcibly mobilised" into Russia's military.
"At this point, we don't know what the real number is, but I found the data from also National Resistance center that said some of the villages and small towns in the Donetsk Oblast didn't have any men left because they [Russia] conscripted them all," she said.
While Ukraine and Russia are in the early stages of ceasefire negotiations, the future of the occupied territories remains a significant point of contention.
The idea of Mariupol being returned to Ukraine as part of some sort of peace process appears unlikely.
For those who fled the city, an end to the war can't come soon enough, but not at all costs.
"This whole concept of the territory being recognised as Russia's is more than just painful, but unacceptable," Andrii said.
"Many people admitted that they will perceive this as a defeat and a betrayal by their state."
