How Russia pushes its citizenship in occupied Ukrainian territory
It’s very difficult to lead a normal life without a Russian passport in Moscow-occupied parts of Ukraine, but it’s not much easier with it either.
Yevhen, 40, a resident of Rovenky in Ukraine’s Luhansk Oblast, which was occupied back in 2014, had long remained the last employee at a local coal mine without a Russian passport.
The miner privately admitted this was his principled position as he didn’t want to have legal relations with Russia. But he also couldn’t leave his hometown and abandon his sick parents.
“However, they began to scare me that I would be fired. In general, they didn’t allow me to take a single step,” Yevhen said.
Later, he finally applied for Russian citizenship.
Human rights defenders told NV that Russian invaders have now taken up the ultimate solution to the “passport issue,” trying to complete the process of “transforming” residents of occupied Ukrainian regions into Russian citizens.
According to Ukrainian NGO Eastern Human Rights Group, Moscow issued 1,688,775 passports in occupied Ukrainian territories as of late February 2024, including 720,487 in Donetsk Oblast, 700,156 in Luhansk Oblast, 147,000 in Kherson Oblast, and 121,132 in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
Pavlo Lysyansky, head of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Security and founder of the Eastern Human Rights Group, having analyzed Russian “passportization,” is convinced the Kremlin has stepped up pressure on the local population and began to pass laws that comprehensively degrade the lives of Ukrainian citizens who refuse to abandon their country.
The coercive arsenal used by the invaders is quite diverse: from monetary fines of up to RUB 400,000 ($4,400) to five years in prison. The easiest way is to obtain a so-called patent, i.e. the status of a “foreign citizen.”
Read also: Ukrainians in Russia-occupied territories forced to register for military service, Kyiv says
To control the situation, Russia has obliged Ukrainians without Russian citizenship to contact the so-called “Russian Interior Ministry’s migration departments” in occupied Ukrainian lands if they stay in a given town for more than 90 days.
At the same time, local employers are now forced to report the hiring of “foreign” workers, i.e. Ukrainian citizens.
If the employees lack said “patents,” occupation “authorities” impose administrative fines, in particular up to RUB 5,000 ($55) on individuals, up to RUB 50,000 ($550) on officials, and up to RUB 800,000 ($8,800) on legal entities.
Seniors, in turn, are blackmailed by conditioning social security payments on having a Russian passport.
Those who don’t obey are subject to deportation.
At least 85 administrative passport-related cases have recently been drawn up in occupied Luhansk Oblast alone, while a dozen Ukrainians have already been subject to deportation, according to the Eastern Human Rights Group.
The power of coercion
Vira Yastrebova, director of the Eastern Human Rights Group, said the Russian National Guard or Rosgvardiya, last November conducted raids in temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk Oblast to “identify accomplices of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.” However, the operation was primarily aimed at identifying Ukrainian citizens who refuse to apply for Russian citizenship.
“That is, any person without a Russian passport was labeled by the invaders as [a member of] ‘proxy forces,” Yastrebova explains.
“Thus, all peaceful citizens who disagreed with the invaders automatically became ‘terrorists’ in the Kremlin’s eyes.”
Since Jan. 1, 2024, Russia have stopped paying pensions and social security to residents of occupied territories of Donetsk Oblast with Ukrainian passports or even with those of Moscow’s Donbas puppet statelets.
In addition, since the beginning of the year, all residents of Russian-occupied eastern Ukrainian territories who need access to healthcare must have health insurance, which cannot be obtained without Russian citizenship.
As evidenced by the Eastern Human Rights Group’s materials, the Kremlin didn’t leave out pregnant women either. The Russians provide children born after 2007 in occupied territories with so-called “maternal capital” of RUB 10,000 ($110). Predictably, these payments are only available to parents with Russian passports.
Read also: Russians coerce occupied Ukrainians with essential aid as passportization push intensifies
In addition, since Oct. 17, 2023, all departments of Russia’s Federal Registration Service (Rosreestr) in temporarily occupied territories stopped registering Ukrainian citizens’ real estate. That is, anyone can neither buy nor sell housing without a Russian passport.
Last year, Moscow set up two temporary detention centers in occupied territories for people designated for deportation due to refusal to obtain Russian citizenship. Even people with Russian passports could end up there, whose only “fault” is that they didn’t want to submit a separate application to renounce Ukrainian citizenship.
In general, Russian documents by themselves aren’t a guarantee of a peaceful life under occupation. Yastrebova says that all men in Russia-occupied part of Kherson Oblast had to register at military recruitment centers before obtaining a Russian passport. She believes that this way, Moscow prepares to mobilize Ukrainians to fight against their own country.
In addition, occupation “departments” of Russia’s Interior Ministry can at any time, at the request of the FSB, take away the Russian passport from any resident and send them to said deportation centers.
People as pawns
The Kremlin doesn’t need “passportization” of the occupied Ukrainian regions to increase the number of Russian citizens. According to political scientist Petro Oleshchuk, Putin’s regime is trying to “consolidate” seized lands, enabling Moscow to say that there are “Russian people who cannot be just abandoned.” So, the main task that the “new citizens” have to fulfill for Putin is to become a trump card in potential future negotiations with Ukraine.
A side effect of this strategy is gaining the loyalty of the local population, by suggesting that anyone who accepted Russian citizenship will face reprisals if Kyiv ever reclaims its sovereign territory, Oleschuk believes.
However, Lysyansky clarifies that only those who organized and implemented the forced “passportization” would be punished.
“The legal ‘erasure’ of Ukrainian identity among citizens living in temporarily occupied territories is now the main goal of Putin’s ‘passportization,” he added.
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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
