The life of the population in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine is filled with torture, coercion, cultural assimilation and military indoctrination. In a territory thought to be home to around 11 million people, Russia and its occupation authorities have created a system for people in which getting basic services – access to food, education, work, health care and vital medicines, as well as pensions or property – depends on whether they accept the Russian authorities and whether they have a Russian passport.
This conclusion was reached by a journalistic team, including representatives of a number of European public-law media, which for months analyzed reports from the scene of the event, reports from experts, official announcements of the Russian authorities and first-person descriptions of the life of Ukrainians in the occupied territories . The researchers believe that the collected data testify to violations of the norms of international law and, in some cases, to possible war crimes.
Criminal mobilization of the occupied territories
“One of the most important consequences of imposed Russian citizenship is that these people are now forced to serve in the Russian armed forces. This is precisely why it constitutes a war crime,” lawyer Ekaterina Rashevskaya from Kyiv told DV.
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, of those 300,000 men who were mobilized in the fall of 2022 to participate in the war against Ukraine, 80,000 were from the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Meanwhile, eyewitnesses report that the occupation military committees in Kherson and Zaporizhia have also begun conscripting men of conscription age.
The pressure to obtain Russian passports has intensified since the entry into force in April of this year of a new law under which people in the occupied territories who have not received Russian citizenship by July 2024 will be considered “foreigners or stateless persons”. and will be subject to deportation. Meanwhile, in the so-called The DNR, for example, is even studying the issue of creating special centers for these people.
The most defenseless become the first target
The researchers point out that the forced issuance of Russian passports is only one of the tools that the Kremlin uses to Russify the occupied territories in eastern Ukraine – there are many other levers that are part of the strategy to turn the population into Russians.
The most vulnerable become the main target – such as the elderly who live alone. There are also known cases where people were denied humanitarian aid if they did not have a Russian passport. Such as the flooding caused by the explosion of the Nova Kakhovka dam or the provision of life-saving medicines such as insulin.
“Without a Russian passport, no pension is granted, no food is provided, and there is no mention of medical services,” says the chairman of the Kherson regional council, Alexander Samoilenko. “When a person gets sick in the annexed territories, having the right citizenship literally depends on whether he lives or dies,” the journalists wrote in their study.
Systematic use of torture
But even having Russian citizenship is not a guarantee of a peaceful life – those considered disloyal can also be deported, for example for criticizing the “special military operation”, as the war is officially called in Russia. Artyom Petrik, who lived in occupied Kherson, says that there is no room for dissent. “If you want to maintain or demonstrate a Ukrainian identity, you will have big problems – arrest, torture, death.”
In its report from the end of October 2023, an independent UN international commission found “wide and systematic use of torture by the Russian authorities” in Ukraine, which can be equated to crimes against humanity. “Torture led to death,” said Leonid Remiga, head doctor of the hospital in Kherson. He himself was tortured when he was arrested in September 2022. “The torture was carried out masterfully – they beat us with batons on our knees, fingers, hands, ribs, etc.”
Education – in the spirit of Russian state propaganda
On September 1, 2023, the school year began in 1,250 schools in the territories occupied by Russia. Hastily written history textbooks are used for teaching, which Amnesty International describes as “an ugly attempt to indoctrinate students”. “It is an extraordinary tool for propaganda, transformation and destruction of culture, for the destruction of knowledge and history. It is a path to numerous violations of the rights of children and adults,” said Agnes Calamar, Secretary General of Amnesty International. In addition, the curriculum for children from the age of 16 already includes the so-called military training restored from Soviet times.
For parents who want to preserve the Ukrainian identity of their children, the only way out is the secret online lessons, which pose a serious risk to those who participate in them. “Ukrainians can be arrested even just because of the applications they have on their mobile phones – if, for example, they provide children with access to online education on Ukrainian curricula,” Kalamar explains.
“Millions of people in the land corridor between Crimea and Luhansk wake up every morning to a reality where Russian rules apply. If you break or ignore them, you can hardly survive,” the researchers conclude.
Author: Maxim Sidorzhevsky
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2023-11-20 12:46:00
#Threats #torture #Russification #occupied #Ukraine
