Russia tells Ukrainians in occupied areas to obtain Russian passports or leave

For more than three years, every time 67-year-old Iryna and her husband walked outside their front door, the Ukrainian couple was worried about their lives.

They may get caught in shelling or drone strikes, or end up being questioned by security personnel at the muzzle as they try to cross a checkpoint in the southern part of the Holson region, which is still in the Russian-controlled area.

The couple had lived under occupation since the early days of the Russian invasion, initially refusing to obtain a Russian passport, even though Moscow made it increasingly difficult to survive without them.

“Everything is getting harder,” Iryna said in an interview with CBC News last month. “You feel like you’re in a cage.”

CBC News agreed to identify with Iryna only in her name because of her concerns about Russian retribution, and she said she and her husband thought they had no choice but to get a Russian passport last year. That was when local shops were closed and groceries were not available without passing Russian checkpoints.

Like many other Ukrainians, she and her husband accepted Russian citizenship because they were worried about what would happen if they didn’t.

Quality allocation of passports

It is part of a broad coercive campaign that human rights experts consider to be part of a broad coercive campaign aimed at expanding Moscow’s impact on the occupied territories, part of the region’s demand for Ukraine to abandon any potential peace agreement.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin refused to implement a 30-day ceasefire, and Russian forces recently launched a new offensive in an attempt to capture more Ukrainian land.

According to Moscow, 3.5 million residents living in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson have received their passports.

Although Russian President Vladimir Putin said the country issued a large-scale passport in these regions, he signed a presidential decree in March to target a small number of Ukrainians who still insisted.

Ukrainians living in Russia, or areas they claim to control, must legitimize their identities by September 10, or leave their homes.

Although these Ukrainian regions are not entirely controlled by Russia, Moscow attempts to justify their claims by staging. “Fake” Referendum condemned by global leaders.

Its passport policy is an extension of the strategy, which argues that it attempts to undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty and clearly shows that Moscow has no intention of giving up the territory it now occupies.

Russia has previously used its rapid passport program as a geopolitical tool in other areas, including Leave the area Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, and separatist transdniestria areas in Moldova.

After Russia illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, it distributed Russian passports in a wide range of movements.

Life in life

On February 24, 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine in full swing, Iryna and her husband lived in a cottage on the island of Dnipro River Delta in the Helsen region.

The area was captured by Russia in the first week of the war.

when Ukrainian troops recaptured Iryna ordered her and other residents to evacuate south in November 2022, including Kherson City, including Russian soldiers.

She and her husband ended up living in the house of others in the village of Stara Zbur’ivka on the south side of the Dnipro River.

Iryna told CBC News that they tried to avoid interacting with Russian soldiers, but had to cross the Russian checkpoint every time they needed groceries or supplies, meaning they would be roasted by those equipped.

“They kept asking, ‘Why don’t you take your passport, are you waiting for the Ukrainian army to return?’

She said at one time, a soldier pointed a gun at her husband’s head while asking him.

“It’s impossible without them,” she said. “It’s dangerous.”

When Iryna and her husband decided to leave Kherson in March, they used their Russian passports when they entered Crimea and Russia. At that time, a local network of underground volunteers helped them return to Ukraine through Belarus, she said.

Now living in Dnipro, the couple said their passports imposed on Russia were useless.

Passport Policy

Even before Russia launched a full-scale invasion, Moscow tried to attract Ukrainian citizenship.

Putin Signed an ordinance This process was accelerated for those living in the self-proclaimed areas of Donetsk and Luhansk, and then controlled by Russian-backed separatists.

By July 2022, the Kremlin announces all Ukrainian citizens Eligible for passport Under the fast track scheme.

According to Human Rights Watch, the passport is through Illegal stress exercisein which Russian authorities threaten to detain Ukrainian citizens or to confiscate their property if they do not accept their passports.

It is increasingly unlikely that Russia has no document on its occupied territory, requiring it to access state services, including pension payments, education and health care.

During the six months of 2023, human rights doctors at international organizations recorded at least 15 cases of medical treatment denied because they lived in occupied land without a Russian passport.

Some hospitals even set up tables so desperate patients can fill out necessary paperwork there, the organization said.

Advice for Ukrainian citizens

Ivan, a coordinator of the Yellow Ribbon Resistance movement active in the occupied territories, told CBC News that in the first few years of the Russian invasion, he and other volunteers informed residents about how to avoid receiving Russian passports.

CBC News agreed not to identify him with his last name because of his work on occupied territory and the possibility of retribution from the Russian authorities.

In 2023, the Resistance Group launched an information campaign on possible measures by Ukrainian citizens to prevent their apartments or other real estate from being confiscated if they do not have Russian citizenship.

But he said that as Russia increases restrictions, messaging has changed.

“We recommend people get Russian passports because if you want to survive, you basically need it,” he said in an April Zoom interview. “You may be arrested or detained…just because you don’t. ”

Although he and others tried to assure residents that they could later give up their Russian citizenship, he admitted that it might mean that men who could be new citizens were elected to the country’s army.

Ivan graduated from the University of Information Technology in 2021 and lived in Kherson City when the Russian invaded. At that time, he lost his passport to Ukraine, so he was eventually issued a Russian legal document.

After the liberation of the city of Helsen, Ivan went to the north of the country and then followed the Russian route into part of the Ukrainian Ukrainian territory of Zaporizhzhia.

He told CBC News that he had relatives living in areas where he needed a passport and he helped some of the local activists there to carry out nonviolent resistance by tying yellow ribbons to trees and distributing information brochures.

But he admitted that he only knew a few people who had not taken their Russian passport in the occupied areas.

“Even if they know that if the occupation continues, they will have to accept their passport.”