The Russian Federation inhabits occupied regions by the Russians. Will everyone be deported from Ukraine - the opinion of experts
On April 26, Deputy Minister of Defense Anna Malyar wrote in her Telegram channel that Russian invaders were trying to influence the ethnic composition of the population in the occupied regions of Ukraine. According to her, for this purpose the Russian Federation throws people of different nationalities from their remote republics, mostly referring to the low -income sections of the population. The most actively similar measures are used in the Luhansk region.
You will not call this practice a new one. Since 2014, Russia has moved its citizens to Crimea, to Donetsk and Luhansk. In the summer of 2021, the head of the project of the Institute of Black Sea Strategic Studies, Andriy Klimenko wrote that during the occupation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, the population of the peninsula was existing due to migration from the Russian Federation by at least 1 million people.
The question arises - what will happen to these people after the de -occupation of the Ukrainian territories, if they do not have time or even want to leave on their own? Which of them will be responsible? And is Ukraine have all legal levers, opportunities and resources in order to force all the citizens of Russia who have been illegal? Focus spoke about it with human rights defenders and lawyers.
Vyacheslav Likhachev, a member of the Expert Council of the Center for Civil Liberties (CSS), believes that Moscow does not relieve the ethnic factor when moving its citizens. "From the point of view of Russian ideology, Ukrainians living in these territories are" Russians "who need to, so to speak," return "to Russian identity. This is what the propaganda of the aggressor country is aimed at, and significant financial resources are allocated.
In words, Moscow does not consider the inhabitants of the occupied regions ethnically strangers who need to be replaced by a more loyal population, " - comments the expert. Likhachev is convinced that the question of the movement of people is about specific professions and specialties that occupiers need in the territories they conquered.
To do this, in the same Luhansk or Donetsk regions, people whose profession are associated with construction and industry are encouraged to involve them in the creation of a certain infrastructure. The fact that the occupying power inhabits the regions by specific experts, Andriy Yakovlev agrees, lawyer and expert of the media initiative for human rights (MIPP). The expert recalculates which of its citizens Russia wants to see in the conquered territories.
It is: the replacement of the population by citizens of the aggressor country carries great risks for Ukraine, confident Alexander Pavlichenko, executive director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights (UHHRU). "It is the washing of Ukrainian identity, the proclamation that the Russian population is living there," he explains. Pavlichenko believes that Russia is trying to populate its citizens to overcome the resistance that Ukrainians do the occupation regime in one way or another.
Experts believe that it is important to separate immediately who specifically talks about. If we are talking about those who directly participated in the occupation of the regions and implemented the occupation regime, they will try to leave themselves as soon as possible, and if they cannot, then, most likely, they will be responsible for their actions in the territory of Ukraine.
A completely different situation with ordinary citizens of the Russian Federation, who did not fight, and in the occupied territories was engaged in civil work - the same teachers, builders or gas welders. According to the lawyer of the law company Riyako & Partners Mykola Maksimov, all these people violated the legislation of Ukraine, because they left into the territory of the country not through state border crossing points.
This provides administrative or criminal liability (imprisonment for up to 5 years). It is important to understand that Russia, which purposefully replaces local residents by their own citizens, violates the International Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilian Population during the War. Andriy Yakovlev from MIPP is convinced that those people who, from 2014 to today, have been settled in the occupied territories of Ukraine, can also be considered as accomplices of this war crime.
But in each case the guilt of the person should be proved individually. However, in Ukraine, it will hardly be a resource to investigate each case in detail and to conduct lawsuits, if it is not about candid propagandists and representatives of the occupying power. "Today, the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine has already opened more than 72,000 cases regarding various episodes of war crimes.
I do not think that someone else will further investigate the individual damage that a conditional gas service worker could cause in the same Severodonetsk," the human rights activist comments Likhachev. Paradoxically, this sounds, but such a probability really exists, experts surveyed by the focus suggest.
In this matter, the role is played by several important factors: according to Pavlichenko, Russians with such social communications, with real estate, that they had managed to buy directly from Ukrainian right holders in an official way, they could stay in Ukraine after the war, but without a citizenship.
"It can be a variant of the Baltic countries, that is, Russians will be able to live here on appropriate conditions, work but will not have the right to vote in elections and will not participate in political life. If they want to acquire citizenship, then the proper procedural measures must be taken, and if they violate The regime of stay, they are evicted, " - comments the human rights activist.
According to Maximov, a variant for Russians who want to stay may be to receive a temporary residence permit in the territory of Ukraine or other permits that give the right to stay in the territory of Ukraine. "The option with full compulsory deportation somewhere outside Ukraine looks impossible. I think they will simply give them the right in accordance with the legislation to obtain permits on the right to stay in the Ukrainian territory," he summarizes.