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US officials say a trio of assassination attempts targeting pro-Russian officials over the past two weeks suggests a burgeoning resistance movement against pro-Russian authorities occupying parts of southern Ukraine.

While it is just a few incidents isolated to the town of Kherson so far, US officials say the resistance could grow into a wider counterinsurgency that would pose a significant challenge to Russia's ability to control newly captured territory across Ukraine.

The Kremlin "faces rising partisan activity in southern Ukraine," Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, said during a conference in Washington, DC, last week.

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The US believes Russia does not have enough forces in Kherson to effectively occupy and control the region, one US official said, especially after pulling forces from the area for the fight to the east in Donbas. Another US official told CNN that move may have provided Ukrainian partisans with a window in which to attack locally installed Russian officials.

Ukraine has also conducted limited counterattacks near Kherson, further straining Russian forces.

The region is critical to Russia's hold on Ukraine's Black Sea coast and controls access to the Crimean peninsula. It's unclear how many Russian forces are in or near Kherson, but an occupation against a hostile local population requires far more soldiers than a peaceful occupation of territory.

Russia's leaders have prioritised the military campaign at the expense of any semblance of government.

"It's clearly not something they're able to invest in right now," one US official said.

Trio of assassination attempts

The first attack in Kherson occurred on June 16, when an explosion shattered the windows of a white Audi Q7 SUV. The vehicle was left seriously damaged, but the target of the attack survived.

Eugeniy Sobolev, the pro-Russian head of the prison service in occupied Kherson, was hospitalised after the attack, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

Less than a week later, a second pro-Russian official in Kherson was targeted. This time, the attack succeeded.

On June 24, Dmitry Savluchenko, the pro-Russian official in charge of the Department of Youth and Sports for the Kherson region, was killed, RIA Novosti reported.

Serhii Khlan, an adviser to the head of the Ukrainian Kherson Civil Military administration, called Savluchenko a "traitor" and said he had been blown up in his car.

Khlan proclaimed, "Our partisans have another victory".

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On Tuesday, the car of a third pro-Russian official was set on fire in Kherson, according to Russian state news agency Tass, though the official was not injured. It's unclear who committed the attacks.

There does not appear to be a central command guiding an organised resistance, officials said, but the attacks have increased in frequency, particularly in the Kherson region, which Russia occupied in March at the beginning of its invasion.

A source familiar with Western intelligence was more sceptical about whether the resistance could develop from partisan attacks to a more organised campaign capable of managing the attacks and supplying weapons and instructions

So far, the resistance has not dented Russia's control over Kherson, the source familiar with Western intelligence emphasised.

But in the long term, the US assesses that Russia will eventually face a counterinsurgency from the local Ukrainian population.

"I think Russia is going to have significant challenges in trying to establish any sort of stable administration for these regions, because likely collaborators – more prominent ones – are going to be assassinated and others will be living in fear," said Michael Kofman, director for Russia studies at the Center for Naval Analyses, a Washington-based think tank.

Making Russian governance difficult

On Tuesday, Russian-appointed authorities in the Kherson region arrested the elected Ukrainian mayor of the city, Ihor Kolykhaiev, hours before announcing plans for a referendum to join Russia. The pro-Russian military-civilian administration accused Kolykhaiev of encouraging people to "believe in the return of neo-Nazism".

Kolykhaeiv's adviser said Russian authorities also had seized hard drives from computers, ransacked safes and searched for documents. Earlier this month, Ukraine's military said "invaders" had broken into Kherson State University and abducted the rector.

Russian forces have gradually instituted the ruble as the local currency and issued Russian passports.

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In Mariupol, pro-Russian authorities celebrated the so-called "liberation" of the city in May. The Russian-aligned Donetsk People's Republic changed road signs from Ukrainian to Russian and installed a statue of an elderly woman grasping a Soviet flag. Meanwhile, the iconic Mariupol sign painted in Ukrainian colours was repainted in Russian colours.

Despite Russia's efforts to eliminate Ukrainian history, ethnicity and nationalism from Kherson and other occupied territories, the Ukrainian population shows a willingness to resist.

"The occupiers and local collaborators are making more and more loud statements about [the] Kherson region joining Russia," a Ukrainian official said last week, "but every day, more and more Ukrainian flags and inscriptions appear in the city."

The attempts to forcibly erase Ukrainian culture and dictate a Russian hegemony have produced the opposite effect in some cases, according to a senior NATO official.

"There have been reports of assassination attempts against some of the quislings that have been put in place to be governors, mayors [and] business leaders," said the NATO official. A quisling is a traitor who collaborates with an enemy force, named after a Norwegian official in World War II who collaborated with the Nazis.

"That almost certainly has deterred Russian sympathisers or Russians or whoever they're going to bring in there to take these posts from taking them up in the first place."

As an occupying force in Kherson – in particular, one that seems intent on maintaining control – Russia has to provide basic services in the territories it manages, like clean water and trash pickup. But the US assesses that acts of resistances are making it difficult to provide governance and basic services, one of the US officials said.

The US knew there was a "serious resistance network" within Ukraine that would be able to take over if and when the military had failed, the official said. Before the invasion, the US anticipated the insurgency would emerge, coupled with guerrilla warfare, after a brief period of intense fighting in which Russia prevailed. But the war has now dragged on for months, with many analysts predicting a far lengthier conflict.

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A senior US official warned a Russian counterpart before the conflict that they would face an insurgency if they invaded Ukraine and tried to occupy territory, the official said. But the warning fell on deaf ears and the invasion proceeded, driven in part by hubris and bad intelligence.

Russia believed its forces would be greeted with open arms and would crush any resistance quickly, erroneous fantasies that fell apart quickly but did little to change Russian President Vladimir Putin's calculations.

Kofman says it's unclear what type of governing framework Russia will try to create to exert control, but there is no doubt that it intends to retain the territories. After facing prolonged, bloody insurgencies in Afghanistan and Chechnya, the Kremlin knew to anticipate another potential insurgency in Ukraine.

"They did see it coming," Kofman said.

"That's why they set up filtration camps and shipped out a lot of the population out of occupied areas."

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Google will automatically purge information about users who visit abortion clinics or other places that could trigger legal problems now that the US Supreme Court has opened the door for states to ban the termination of pregnancies.

The company behind the world's dominant internet search engine and the Android software that powers most of the world's smartphones outlined the new privacy protections in a Friday blog post.

Besides automatically deleting visits to abortion clinics, Google also cited counselling centres, fertility centres, addiction treatment facilities, weight loss clinics, and cosmetic surgery clinics as other destinations that will be erased from users' location histories.

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Users have always had the option to edit their location histories on their own, but Google will proactively do it for them as an added level of protection.

“We’re committed to delivering robust privacy protections for people who use our products, and we will continue to look for new ways to strengthen and improve these protections," Jen Fitzpatrick, a Google senior vice president, wrote in the blog post.

The pledge comes amid escalating pressure on Google and other Big Tech companies to do more to shield the troves of sensitive personal information through their digital services and products from government authorities and other outsiders.

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The calls for more stringent privacy controls were triggered by the US Supreme Court's recent decision overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalised abortion.

That reversal could make abortion illegal in more than a dozen states, raising the spectre that records about people's location, texts, searches and emails could be used in prosecutions against abortion procedures or even for medical care sought in a miscarriage.

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Like other technology companies, Google each year receives thousands of government demands for users' digital records as part of misconduct investigations.

Google says it pushes back against search warrants and other demands that are overly broad or appear to be baseless.

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In a new series, NBN News is highlighting the efforts to rebuild the flood-ravaged Northern Rivers community. Here, Olivia Grace-Curran and Josephine Shannon visit schools in the area facing the dual problem of displaced students and buildings damaged beyond repair.

Four months on from the day the New South Wales Northern Rivers was swallowed by floodwaters and students across the region are still struggling to come to terms with their new reality.

One in six pupils at Mullumbimby High School lost everything in the February and March catastrophes and every building at their school went under by a metre of water.

But the disaster is not over.

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School captain Nalani Farrell's family has been forced to knock down their home at South Golden Beach, north of Byron Bay, after mould took over.

"A lot of people just expect that everything is back to normal, but a lot of us are still experiencing repercussions from the floods," Farrell told 9News.

She said the disruptions to learning have been ongoing and as Term 2 comes to an end, many of her classmates are anxious about the looming HSC.

"Term 1, the first few weeks was COVID-19 so we were in lockdown. We came back for a week," she said.

"Then the floods happened and we just missed weeks and weeks… I think a lot of us just don't feel prepared because we've been trying to take (it) day-by-day."

Several areas of Mullumbimby High School were damaged by flood waters, including the hall, library, staff spaces and playground.

"All the mould just destroyed all of the books in the library, our hall has just been destroyed, all the floors ruined – we haven't had a whole school assembly for months now," Farrell said.

The challenges also taking a toll on Year 12 student Matilda Thornton.

"I lost my car, one of our houses got flooded .. It's just been quite devastating all around for all of our community," Thornton said.

Mullumbimby High School returned to their campus in April with six temporary buildings installed to cater for the displacement.

Tenders have opened for a contractor to rebuild flood-impacted buildings, with work expected to be complete by the end of Term 1, 2023.

High student demand for emotional support in schools

School captain Max Biermann said the demand for emotional support has been high.

"We've had a lot more students seeking to see the school counsellor and we've needed a lot more support from our local community just due to the stress of it all," he said.

At the peak of the flood events 331 schools had temporarily ceased operations.

Online learning was offered for students, but for many across the region including Mullumbimby High's John Harry, it wasn't an option.

"I had no internet – I live up in the valley, no internet, no power for weeks – completely cut off from society, our road had fallen down and I was unable to leave (my home)," Harry said.

"We had shipments and helicopters flying in giving us food and stuff – that was a once in a lifetime experience."

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Harry said school work went out the window when the priority became assisting his much-loved community.

"Lots of volunteer work that we were all doing, helping our community out," he told 9News.

As villages began to rebuild, it was difficult to find focus again in the classroom.

"Teachers have been great helping us to get back on track.. we were crumpled down, the motivation had gone."

First school in the region to be deemed 'unsalvagable'

Richmond River High School in Lismore is not so lucky.

Last week, NSW Education advised the school community to prepare for the secondary school to be rebuilt in an entirely new location, which is yet to be determined.

Deputy Secretary School Performance North Leanne Nixon said the Department of Education's site visits and assessments concluded twelve buildings were "beyond repair".

"The only room that was salvageable was in fact the historical part of the school – which everyone in Lismore recognises," Nixon said.

"There was very, very little that could have been saved from those buildings. That meant everything in them … people's resources, student work, all the equipment – none of that was salvageable.

"Teachers have had resources for thirty years or more of their career that are irreplaceable – and for students that are working on their senior work, or their HSC, some of that is irreplaceable."

Richmond River High is the first in the region to be deemed "unsalvageable" as a result of the flooding disaster.

"Out of these floods in 2022 it is the only school that we will be looking at an alternative site, for the others we think there is raising to do," Nixon said.

"Clearly we're not going to put (the school) back on that site – that wouldn't be wise given its propensity to flood regularly.

"We need to work on how we will do this rebuild, where it will be and we'll consult with the community all through this."

Temporary and 'pop-up' schools peppered across the flood-ravaged region

An "emotional" information session was held following news about Richmond River High School's fate.

"The reaction was as you would expect – there were people that were very sad about this and there were others that thought, given the history of flooding, that this was a sensible move," she said.

Richmond River High School has been operating out of Lismore High Campus and will continue to for a number of years.

"We've built a pop-up school with all the bells and whistles – It has science labs, has manual arts rooms, cooking rooms," Nixon said.

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At Condong Public School, just outside of Murwillumbah, students have relocated to Murwillumbah South Infants School.

The small primary school in the Tweed Shire saw over a metre of floodwater fill their classrooms earlier this year, damaging all buildings, including classrooms, administration buildings, the library and toilets.

Principal Brendan Quinn says it's not the first time Condong Public School has been forced to operate inside another school.

"In 2017, when we were displaced from the floods then, we were up here {Murwillumbah South Infants School} for three terms after those floods as well," Quinn said.

Discussions are underway to determine how the rebuild can be made flood-proof, with raised buildings a likely feature.

Students will have to wait until mid-2024 to return to their own campus.

Finally getting their identity back

The biggest challenge for Broadwater Public School, near Ballina, was losing its "identity", Principal Stephen Curtin said.

All of his 52 students now get dropped off to class fifteen kilometres south at Evans River Community School, Evans Head.

"(Their) lives have been completely turned upside down. They've found it very, very hard," Curtin said.

When the tight-knit school was first placed at Evan's River, the children were plunged in with 550 other students.

"That was a big change for our kids to get use to that," he said.

"It's just missing that sense of a small school where all kids nurture each other, play with each other, look after each other – that still happens in a sense, but not quite the same as it was at Broady," he said.

Temporary demountables have now been installed at Evans River Community School, offering separate learning spaces for the small group.

Principal Curtin said it's starting to feel like Broadwater again.

"We're getting better … We are starting to get a little bit of our Broadwater identity back … small school feel about it."

"It's just a different feel to the place – some have said they don't want to be here, they want to go back to Broady which is obviously not going to happen for a while."

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He said it will be between 18 and 24 months before the school community is back learning at the rebuilt Broadwater campus.

"There was one building that (floodwater) didn't reach the top floor of, but every other building had within 30 centimetres of the ceiling, flooded through."

Sports equipment from Newcastle and bikes from Noosa

Broadwater Public School, like many across the Northern Rivers, has received donations from far and wide, including sports equipment from Newcastle and bikes from Noosa.

"We've been communicating with a small school in the Hunter Valley who've donated books, with personal letters inside the books to every child in the school, and we've responded to those letters," Curtain said.

"We've had donations from other schools of their whole Scholastic book order coming to us rather than going to that school."

At the moment, Broadwater Public School needs bookshelves.

"We have no real library furniture at the moment, we've got lots and lots of donated books sitting just on tables."

Top priority remains the wellbeing of students

Many Year Five and Six students across the Northern Rivers will never return to the primary school they grew up in.

Curtin believes these students are suffering more than others.

"For some the light's not there because they're not going back – Year 5 and 6 won't go back to Broady because they'll be moved onto high school," Curtin said.

"For the rest of us and staff, I think it's something we aspire to – to get back there .. and the community."

He said the school's top priority is the wellbeing of students.

"We saw the kids at their lowest. It's hard to put yourself in a position you haven't been in," Curtain explained.

"It's easy to sit in a different place and say how terrible it is that those guys have lost their homes, but unless you're actually in that position you don't know how bad it is.

"Unless you've lived the situation – it's hard to imagine."

With thousands of people still displaced by the floodwaters, children are living in a range of circumstances.

"We've got parents and we've got kids who are still suffering, because they're not back in their home," Curtin said.

"They're in a caravan on their block or something like that. It's ongoing, it's not like it's all done and dusted and it's all over, it's still ongoing for a lot of our kids and our families."

"Schools are the normal in kids lives and by being back at school with their mates, it is so important for their wellbeing."