The EBU network on investigative journalism, which brings together European public media, has published a long investigation into life in the occupied Ukrainian territories, based on testimonies and interviews.
What is happening in the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia? The EBU network on investigative journalism, which brings together European public media, including France Télévisions, investigated for months
on the future of these regions now under the control of Moscow. The testimonies collected reveal a vast movement of “Russification” of the populations concerned, in particular through the obligation to acquire Russian nationality.
A law signed by Vladimir Putin provides that, from July 2024, those who have not obtained Russian nationality will be considered foreigners or stateless persons and will risk expulsion or imprisonment. Their children, if any, will be entrusted to orphanages. But in the meantime, the Russian passport now already conditions access to social and medical assistance provided to residents. [à une amie diabétique] “They saidthat the next time she came to get insulin, she wouldn’t get it without a passport.” testifies Larysa Borova, who fled the occupied city of Kherson to settle in Odessa.“When you go to the hospital, you must have a Russian passport confirms another woman, referring to another city:“If you don’t have it, they won’t treat you will not.”
Pensions are also reserved for holders of a Russian passport. The investigation also made it possible to collect testimonies reporting arbitrary arrests and torture.“The markets were guarded by FSB agents and soldiers. They stopped and controlled people whenever they wanted , testifies Artem Petrik, who lived under Russian occupation in Kherson, before being imprisoned for four months then returning to Odessa. He says he was the victim of a simulated drowning, with his t-shirt pulled up over his head,“like a mask”
while a can of water was poured on his face.
An essential daily document In September, during so-called local elections, armed men roamed the streets urging residents to vote.“Women with voting slips rang apartment doors says Halyna, a woman who recounts a year under occupation. Retirees were told their pensions would be canceled if they did not vote. The vote took place in apartments.”
A Russian passport is also required from parents to enroll their children in school. Halyna finally gave in. In October, her son’s school celebrated the anniversary of Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s four regions. Education, in fact, is another essential part of this “Russification” carried out at full speed in these territories. As in Russia, some 1,250 schools in the occupied territories have launched a new history textbook, which provides an official account of the Second World War, the Soviet years and the annexation of Crimea. The ongoing conflict, mentioned in the last chapter, is illustrated by comments from Vladimir Putin justifying the invasion by“a question of life and death” engaging [de la Russie] “the historical futureas a people”
. Students aged 16 must undergo basic military training, and parents must send their children to cadet movements. Finally, only Russian citizens have access to property. A refugee in kyiv, Natalia Rudych followed the arrival of intruders in her apartment in Melitopol live, on the video feed from the cameras installed in her building. “Everything that could be taken was taken”,
she relates.
The dilemma of Ukrainians under occupation Ukrainians interviewed in the survey no longer speak Ukrainian in public. They even avoid doing it in front of their neighbors, in a climate of generalized suspicion. In Melitopol, the occupation authorities relaunched the publication of the local newspaper, in a Russified version, and broadcast theKomsomolskaya Pravda
, a pro-Kremlin daily. While Ukraine is tearing down statues evoking the tsarist and Soviet past one by one, the occupiers are rehabilitating Soviet symbols. It is also a banner from this era, decorated with a sickle and a hammer, which was hoisted in the center of the city, for the celebrations organized at the beginning of May 2022. New decrees, conversely, have been introduced to strip Russian citizenship from those who criticize “special military operation”, according to the term in force in the Kremlin. But people living under occupation face another dilemma, the survey authors point out, because they also risk being considered traitors by the Ukrainian side.“Everyone will be considered a collaborator” , laments a farmer, arrested last summer by Ukrainian forces at a checkpoint. To avoid too long detention, he pleaded guilty and received a fine and confiscation of his property. “Today I am an enemy to my country, he declares.
All those who stayed will be considered culprits, collaborators and will be told: ‘Why did you stay? Why didn’t you leave?’.”
Investigation carried out with the participation of journalists Emiliano Bos (RSI), Christoph Bendas (ORF), Derek Bowler (EBU), Louise Jensen (DR), Belen López Garrido (EBU), Indrė Makaraitytė (LRT), Pilar Requena (RTVE), Lili Rutai (EBU) and Alla Sadovnyk (UA:PBC).
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