Kremlin’s great theft. How Russians are conducting modern analog of "dekulakization" in occupied parts of Ukraine - analytical report
The Russians have engaged all administrative resources to seize people’s apartments and other real estate in the occupied Ukrainian territories under the pretext of "confiscation" of property. In addition, the Kremlin is interested in Ukraine’s mineral resources, which they want to use for the Russian military-industrial complex.
When Russia's military aggression began and the Luhansk and Donetsk regions were occupied in 2014, the occupiers started seizing the property of local residents. However, this process was chaotic and was even recognized as illegal by the occupation administrations. It's important to note that between 2014 and 2016, the occupation administrations were still being established in the occupied territories of Luhansk and Donetsk regions. In fact, in 2014-2015, the occupation administrations in the Luhansk region controlled only 30% of the territory, and in the Donetsk region, just 20%.
Following Russia's full-scale invasion and the annexation of Ukraine's temporarily occupied territories, the occupation administrations began issuing decisions aimed at the mass confiscation of property from local residents. This is stated in the analytical report "Confiscation of Property in the Occupied Territories of Ukraine", prepared by the Eastern Human Rights Group and the Institute for Strategic Studies and Security.
According to the heads of the occupation administrations of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, in 2024, thousands of apartments of Ukrainian citizens who previously lived in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine were nationalized.
As Pavlo Lysianskyi explains, the confiscated real estate is transferred to the occupation administrations, which are called "municipalities," and then this property can be transferred to Russian citizens who come to the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine to work in the occupation administrations and law enforcement agencies of the Russian Federation. There have also been cases when confiscated property was put up for sale for Russian citizens - the sale was made through the provision of mortgage loans to Russian citizens.
The actions of the occupation administrations indicate a massive violation of the property rights of residents of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
"It can also be concluded that people whose real estate was confiscated have no possibility of returning to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, and their property is transferred to Russian citizens. Thus, the occupation administrations are gradually resettling Russian citizens to the occupied territories of Ukraine, and local residents are being displaced. This is a real ethnic genocide because it is important for the Kremlin that as few Ukrainians as possible remain on Ukrainian territory," Lysianskyi said.
The process of preparation for "confiscation"
At the first stage, due to the lack of a legislative framework regulating the confiscation procedure, the housing stock in the occupied territories was also confiscated under the pretext of helping residents/displaced persons "whose housing was damaged or lost as a result of hostilities and who need housing from the facilities for temporary accommodation". Facilities for temporary accommodation/ was formed by the occupation administrations from residential premises in which "no one lives".
In January 2023, the Rosregister bodies established in the occupied territories began registering ownership of residential buildings, apartments and rooms in accordance with Russian law. Until October 2023, residents of the occupied territories were allowed to register their property rights by submitting passports confirming their Ukrainian citizenship, as well as powers of attorney issued by Ukrainian notaries. Starting from October 17, 2023, Rosreestr offices in the occupied territories stopped accepting documents for real estate registration from foreign citizens and citizens of Ukraine.
Rosreestr bodies in the occupied territories reported that real estate is being registered for "entry into the right of inheritance only if there is a document confirming Russian citizenship."
Vira Yastrebova, director of the Eastern Human Rights Group, says that in this way the occupiers encouraged Ukrainians to take Russian citizenship, and they began to record the so-called "oath" on video to have "damaging information" on large parts of the population. But the main factor is that Russian security forces began to be actively transported to the occupied parts, Yastrebova clarifies.
For example, on 28 June 2024, the occupation law-making body of the 'LPR' adopted Law No. 77 of 28 June 2024 "On Amendments to Articles 7 and 8 of the Law of the Luhansk People's Republic 'On the Peculiarities of Identification, Use and Recognition of the Right of Municipal Property of Municipal Formations of the Luhansk People's Republic to Residential Premises with Signs of Ownerless Property Located on the Territory of the Luhansk People's Republic'.
According to the adopted amendments, houses and apartments confiscated from Ukrainian citizens "shall be provided for use by employees of the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Federal Security Service, the Ministry of Civil Defence, Emergencies and Disaster Management, the Federal Service of the National Guard, the Foreign Intelligence Service, the Prosecutor's Office, the Investigative Committee, etc. on a priority basis.
"An important factor is that the Kremlin has started distributing apartments in the occupied areas as rewards, thereby securing the loyalty of the security forces in the Ukrainian territories it has managed to occupy," Lysianskyi says.
The following criteria have been established to declare residential buildings, apartments, and rooms in the occupied territories as "ownerless" and to facilitate their confiscation:
- Failure to pay for housing and utilities for one year;
- Lack of information on the registered ownership of residential premises in the Unified State Register of Real Estate of the Russian Federation.
- Non-use of residential premises.
Within 10 calendar days from the discovery of a residential property showing signs of being "ownerless," the occupation authorities were required to publish an announcement on the official website of the local self-government body on the Internet, as well as in visible places near the entrance to the property. The announcement had to inform about the discovery of the property with signs of being ownerless and call for the person who considers themselves the owner or holds rights to the property to appear in person within 30 calendar days from the date of publication, providing the following documents:
a) a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation or another identity document;
b) documents confirming ownership of the residential property.
Yastrebova explains that the requirement to present a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation to confirm ownership restricted the rights of residents in the occupied territories who refused to obtain Russian citizenship. This provision served as an additional incentive for forced passportization.
In the absence of the owner of a residential house, apartment or room, the collegial body for the management and disposal of property objects applies to the Rosregister to register the identified property as ownerless and determines the persons to whom the ownerless residential premises will be transferred for their proper maintenance, including maintenance of operational properties. Upon expiry of three months from the date of registration of the residential premises as "ownerless" in the Rosregister, the authorised local government body applies to the court with "an application for recognition of the municipal property right of the municipality to the residential premises in question in accordance with the procedure provided for by the legislation of the Russian Federation".
"But in reality, it doesn't work that way - apartments are found in large numbers, but in order to confirm ownership, it is the owner who has to go through seven circles of bureaucratic hell, because the Russians create unbearable conditions," says Lysianskyi.
The first scandals
In 2024, there were massive scandals in the occupied territories related to the abuse of officials of the occupation administrations in the confiscation of residential buildings and apartments in the occupied territories. The consequences of the scandals went public, followed by statements that "the situation with the apartments for which the registration of citizens' property rights was terminated will be resolved".
For example, in early 2024, residents of the occupied Donetsk region began to protest en masse against the deprivation of their property rights to houses, apartments and rooms. When applying to Rosreestr offices with applications for real estate registration, local residents were massively denied documents due to "the seizure of real estate or a ban on certain actions with real estate on the basis of the Resolution "On Approval of the List of Property Transferred to the Ownership of the Donetsk People's Republic" of 29.09.2022 No. 341, adopted by the "Main Defence Committee of the Donetsk People's Republic", which prohibits registration actions in relation to the property specified in the list".
In particular, there were cases when elderly residents of Donetsk were deprived of their property. For example, a resident of Makiivka, 56-year-old Nataliia Mironova, had lived for 33 years in her apartment at 7 Karl Liebknecht Street, apartment 7. On 1 April 2024, she received a notice from Rosreestr No. KUVD-101/2024-267746/1 about the suspension of state registration of property rights. The reason given by the agency was Resolution of the Main Defence Committee of the DPR No. 341 of 29.09.22 signed by the "Head of the DPR" Denis Pushilin, to which a list of addresses of real estate in respect of which no actions can be taken was attached. She had no utility bills.
Resolution No. 341 of the Main Defence Committee of 29 September 2022 imposed a seizure and ban on certain actions on the residential apartments and houses of approximately 300,000 residents living in the occupied Donetsk region. The text of the resolution was not published.
Forced to respond to the mass protests of local residents deprived of their homes and apartments, the head of the DPR occupation administration stated in July 2024 that "there was a technical error in the adoption of Resolution No. 341 of the Main Defence Committee".
Mass theft
At first, the local occupation authorities should carry out the process of "identifying" the so-called "ownerless apartments", then "notifying" them directly at the property itself, and the "final" step should be the preparation of a statement of claim and its submission to the court in order to "recognise the apartment as ownerless and transfer it to municipal ownership".
However, in reality, the opposite is happening: real estate is being taken away, and then the owners are being forced to prove that the property belongs to them. This is, for example, the case in occupied Melitopol, where the occupiers identify real estate whose owners have left the city and then demand that the owners prove that the property belongs to them and re-register it in accordance with Russian law.
Moreover, the Russians state in the documents that until 2028, only Russian citizens have the right to stop the procedure of declaring property ownerless. Property owners who fail to undergo a mandatory inventory of their properties will face serious consequences. First of all, their property will be declared "ownerless" and published on the city's official website. This means that the local authorities will start the process of registering such properties as ownerless in the Rosreestr.
This process will take no more than three months. After the registration is completed, such facilities will be transferred to municipal ownership within the next three months.
Later, the occupiers will distribute the property among their employees or put it up for sale through a preferential mortgage. According to the occupation authorities, about 1,000 preferential mortgages will be issued to Russians in the occupied part of Ukraine by the end of 2024. This preferential mortgage programme provides loans at 2% interest and is valid until 2030. For comparison, mortgage rates in Russia are currently 26-28%.
Thus, the occupation authorities encourage Russians from various regions of the Russian Federation to relocate to the occupied parts of Ukraine. At the same time, they create numerous obstacles to prevent residents from re-registering their housing under Russian law, thereby avoiding the "ownerless" status. Specifically, residents submit documents to the Multifunctional Centre (MC), but these documents are not processed. Subsequently, their apartments appear on the "ownerless" property lists. Even after resubmitting their information to the so-called Rosregister, they face repeated rejections. Local residents report that even appeals to the "prosecutors" yield no results—the property is still deemed "ownerless," and the residents face the threat of eviction.
For example, the report cites conversations with Ukrainians whose homes remained in the occupied part. For example, Nadiia, a 38-year-old apartment owner in Melitopol, says that when she visited the Multifunctional Centre (MC), where permits are issued, she was denied registration because only one owner physically appeared. In other words, in order to register a property according to Russian law, all of its owners need to come to the MC, but this is often impossible.
"In my case, it's also because my husband cannot come to the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia region because he is connected to the Ukrainian security forces, and he could probably be captured and sent to "be backroomed". So I had to return to Europe, and I don't know what will happen to the apartment now," says Nadiia.
A similar case happened to 40-year-old Victoria from Sievierodonetsk. She says she lived in a multi-storey building in her apartment. She bought it a year and a half before the start of the full-scale war and had it renovated. For a long time, Viktoriia worked as a correspondent for one of the central TV channels in Luhansk region, and her husband is a soldier. On February 24, 2022, she and her son left Sievierodonetsk before the city was occupied.
But after the occupation, each house has a so-called 'supervisor' for the apartments, who collects all the information and passes it on to the occupiers. He said that Russian officers live in the apartment and are waiting for the apartment owners to return to capture them.
"It's interesting that they actually took the apartment, but didn't go through any procedure because it wasn't on the list for confiscation. I can assume that one of the Russian officers will simply register it for themselves, because nothing prevents them from doing so - they will simply enter the data into the register and no one will say a word against it," says Victoria.
Another case is told by a former resident of Luhansk, 41-year-old Oleksandr. He left Luhansk a long time ago, but his mother remained in the city. She lived in the apartment where Oleksandr was registered, but did not return after the occupation in 2014. This year, his mother died, and he was supposed to inherit the apartment as her only son. However, then systematic inspections of apartments whose owners were absent began. The occupation authorities, using incomplete and often distorted data from the real estate register, found apartments of deceased people where the property documents had not been re-registered in accordance with the "norms" of Russian legislation. Oleksandr says that the procedure of "re-registration" practically means appropriation.
"One day, they broke down our door, representatives of the occupation administration and people associated with them came in and assessed the property. It happened simply: one day they just broke down the door. Representatives of the occupation administration and persons associated with them entered the house and carried out an "assessment of the property" for further inclusion in the so-called "facilities for temporary accommodation". In fact, this is a legalised robbery aimed at confiscating housing from all those who did not have time or could not re-register their property under Russian law," says Oleksandr.
An example of this is the case of a Russian soldier from the occupied Crimea who "bought" an apartment in the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia region on preferential terms and moved his family there. In particular, we are talking about the family of a military man who bought an apartment in the village of Myrne (near Melitopol) with the help of privileges. The wife of this soldier, Antonina Sydorenko, an English teacher of students in grades 5-11, said that in addition to the apartment in Myrne, the Russian soldier was also allowed to buy an apartment in Melitopol at a reduced price.
The scale of the theft
In order to understand the scale of the Russians' so-called confiscation actions, we can turn to statistics. Thus, according to the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine, as of November 29, 2024, 926,765 families from Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, including those occupied after Russia's large-scale invasion in 2022, were registered as internally displaced persons (IDPs). It is worth noting that 245,589 families from the almost fully occupied territory of Luhansk region are registered as IDPs with the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine, who owned at least one residential house or apartment in the occupied territory.
Thus, there are at least 245,589 residential buildings and apartments belonging to local residents in the occupied territory of Luhansk region alone.
Based on the proposed method, it is possible to make an approximate estimate of the number of residential houses and apartments of Ukrainian citizens remaining in the occupied territories of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions - 926,765 real estate objects owned by Ukrainian citizens located in the occupied territories.
Taking into account the approximate estimate of the number of residential houses and apartments of Ukrainian citizens remaining in the occupied territories of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions (926,765 properties) and 70,266 Ukrainian citizens who entered the Russian Federation in 2023 and September 2024, it can be assumed that 856,499 properties (residential houses and apartments) will be confiscated by the occupation administrations in the near future.
Pavlo Lysianskyi emphasises that in total, the occupiers and their accomplices among local collaborators are going to process data on more than 5.5 million properties. And it is not only about apartments, but also about enterprises and subsoil.
Thus, the confiscation of subsoil and mineral deposits was also systematically carried out in the temporarily occupied territories. As of November 23, 2024, the register of the Federal State Budgetary Institution "Russian Federal Geological Fund" contains information on 1,325 mineral deposits in the occupied territories, including by region:
- Luhansk has 478 mineral deposits;
- Donetsk has 684 mineral deposits;
- Zaporizhzhia has 140 mineral deposits;
- Kherson region - 59 mineral deposits.
In 2022, 39 solid mineral deposits in the occupied Donetsk region alone were confiscated and placed under "external management". These include 15 deposits of building stone, mainly igneous rocks, which are used to restore old and build new facilities and roads.
The occupied Donetsk region also contains deposits of rare earth elements such as vanadium, hafnium, niobium, tantalum, titanium and zirconium, which are of interest to Russian military corporations for development, extraction and processing.
"Russia sees Ukraine purely as a raw material resource. But they are most interested in what can be used for the military-industrial complex, and everything else, for example, the coal industry, is irrelevant to them," says Lysianskyi.
The Kremlin's goal
According to the authors of the report, there are several factors (blocks) that help the Russian authorities to force Ukrainian citizens out of the occupied territories. The first block is the deliberate creation of unbearable living conditions for the population disloyal to the occupation administration and the Kremlin's policies.
This is done through a set of measures, including economic pressure (restriction of access to administrative services for people without Russian passports, forced replacement of documents), political repression (mass arrests, disappearances, trials without due process), and information warfare (propaganda, censorship, blocking of independent media). All of this creates an atmosphere of fear and hopelessness, forcing people to flee their homes.
The second block is related to large-scale redistribution of property. This refers not only to private property (apartments, houses, land plots), but also to large commercial facilities: enterprises, industrial plants, agricultural land, and tourist infrastructure (recreation centres, hotels, restaurants). The occupation "ministries of property" established in the occupation administrations are engaged in confiscation, forced nationalisation and fictitious privatisation, often through straw person or simply by declaring property "ownerless". This seizure of assets provides the occupiers with significant financial resources, which are used not only to finance the occupation apparatus, but also to line the pockets of officials and the military through large-scale corruption.
The third block is forced russification. This includes the replacement of the Ukrainian language with Russian in education, state institutions and the media. Ukrainian schools and universities are being closed, and Ukrainian culture is being destroyed and distorted. New historical narratives based on propaganda and falsification are being introduced. The goal of these actions is to completely eradicate Ukrainian identity and create a sense of belonging to the "Russian world".
The fourth block is related to the fact that the Russian occupation administration in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine is actively pursuing a policy of replacing the local population with Russian citizens. This policy, which is a planned demographic operation, is aimed at changing the ethnic and political landscape of the region, and is one of the key elements of the Kremlin's long-term strategy of annexation and integration of the occupied territories into Russia.
The fifth block is material conditions for Russian migration. One of the main incentives to move is the significantly higher salaries offered to Russians in the occupied territories compared to salaries in similar regions of Russia. This difference is due not only to a deliberate policy of inflating salaries to attract labour, but also to the lack of qualified personnel among the local population, some of whom were forced to flee due to hostilities or repression by the occupation authorities.
The sixth block is mortgages and cheap housing. In addition to high salaries, an important factor is the provision of preferential mortgages. Unlike in Russian regions, where obtaining a mortgage can be a complicated process with high interest rates, the occupied territories have special programmes that provide Russians with access to housing on favourable terms. This allows them to more easily adapt to their new place of residence and purchase their own housing at significantly lower prices than in Russia. These programmes, which are funded from the Russian budget, are seen as a tool for gradually changing the demographic balance in favour of the Russian population.
The seventh block is the creation of a militarised zone. The military aspect of this migration cannot be ignored. The creation of militarised clusters and military bases in the occupied territories attracts Russians who are ready to serve in the army or work in the structures that support the activities of military units. This provides them with stable income and social guarantees, as well as the opportunity to bring their families to the occupied territories. Because of the war, military towns, military bases, and training grounds are becoming centres of attraction for the Russian population, further strengthening Russian control. Thus, Russians are moving en masse to the occupied territories.
All these blocks are interconnected and reinforce each other. The goal of this policy is not only to seize territory, but also to completely subdue the population, assimilate it and integrate it into the Russian system.
"This system is aimed at destroying Ukrainian statehood in the occupied territories and creating conditions for their further annexation. In general, the policy of population replacement in the occupied territories of Ukraine is a multi-level operation based on economic and military levers aimed at the long-term annexation of the territories and changing their ethnic and national composition. This policy violates international humanitarian law and constitutes a war crime," says Lysianskyi.
Maksym Butchenko
Photo: "Donbas News"
