By Tjitske Lingsma, in collaboration with Ukraine Legal Network
Published by De Groene Amsterdammer, 19 May 2025
The Ukrainian government is under great pressure to give up occupied territory in exchange for a ceasefire with Russia. How are Ukrainians in these regions experiencing living under Russian rule?
‘In the sky, you can constantly see Russian fighter planes flying low. Our town itself is full of soldiers. Mostly Russians. They are everywhere,’ says young Olha, describing her home in the part of Ukrainian Donbas that Russia has occupied for years. She left her place last year. ‘I was afraid of the soldiers. When I walked down the street with a friend, they whistled at us and shouted at us to stop. We walked faster because it was scary. I always tried to avoid being in the streets as much as possible to keep away from them,’ says Olha. The Russian flag flies everywhere. There are billboards with pro-Russia slogans. If there is a line in the store, everyone quickly lets the soldiers go first. In the streets, army trucks with troops, weapons and equipment drive towards the front lines.
Out of fear, few people dare to talk about their lives in occupied territory. Olha’s surname and identity must remain secret. ‘It is dangerous to talk to the media. Because the Russians follow the news. They compare interviews with other information and make connections’, says Olha. If it becomes known who she is, family members who remained in occupied area are at great risk. ‘They could be arrested. Worse, they could be tortured.’
Olha experienced how Russia is erasing Ukrainian culture and identity. ‘Everyone has to speak Russian. Speaking Ukrainian is out of the question. It is only accepted for very old grandmothers and grandfathers’, she explains. A boy who spoke Ukrainian was taken off the bus and beaten.
Education plays a key role in the process of Russification. ‘At school, when our mother tongue was introduced as a subject, that was Russian. If students speak with a Ukrainian accent, they get lower grades – as a way of bullying,’ says Olha. Teachers do not teach the Ukrainian, but the Russian state curriculum. Olha had one lesson a week on Ukrainian language and literature. History of Ukraine was not taught. ‘We have to learn everything about Russia.’
While the war is raging, propaganda is being spread in schools. ‘Our teacher was telling us how bad Ukraine is and that the Ukrainian army was bombarding our hometown with chemical bombs, which is a lie,’ says Olha. ‘It is forbidden to speak of ‘war.’ You have to say ‘special military operation.’ You can’t use the word occupation. Otherwise, the teacher will immediately warn you.’
Olha’s school displays a large portrait of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. As a pupil, she regularly had to send photos of Russian flags and the president to teachers and school administrators as proof of loyalty. ‘If you didn’t, they could call your parents and ask: why isn’t your child participating? Is everything okay at home? We had to constantly show that Russia is our life.’ Like it happened during the farewell ceremony at school. ‘I didn’t join in, but other pupils recited Russian poems and said that Russia is their motherland.’
Only within a small circle could Olha express her opinion freely. ‘Of course, there are also families who embrace Russia. These people express their opinions very loudly. They can really say what they want, namely that Russia is their country of choice.’
As a young Ukrainian, Olha grew up during the occupation process. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and began the violent capture of eastern areas in Ukraine. Since the large-scale war of aggression on February 24, 2022, the Russian regime has occupied large parts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – about 20 percent of Ukraine. At the end of September 2022, Russia organized sham referendums there. Residents were forced to vote on the incorporation of their region into the Russian Federation. With implausible percentages of 87 percent (Kherson) to 99 percent (Donetsk), the result was: in favor of joining Russia. In the meantime, Kyiv is under pressure to cede Ukrainian territory to Russia in exchange for a ceasefire.
What is life like in occupied territory, where an estimated 3.5 million to 6 million Ukrainians live? Moscow is doing everything it can to prevent the world from witnessing the situation. Independent journalists have been silenced. Media, NGOs and organizations such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) are denied access. ‘It would be extremely dangerous for us to go there,’ says Viktoria Nesterenko of the Ukrainian ZMINA Human Rights Center. ‘We are in contact with families of political prisoners. Also with activists, human rights defenders and local observers who are still there. Russian media are also an important source of information,’ says Nesterenko.Just like the Ukrainians who have left.
International law includes specific rules for a hostile regime that dominates areas. These provisions oblige Russia as the occupying power to keep existing Ukrainian laws and institutions intact as much as possible and to protect the population. Moscow is in full violation of these rules by imposing the Russian administrative, legal, educational and socio-cultural systems in the occupied areas.
The disastrous effects of this domination are evident from the index of Freedom House, an organization that promotes democracy. With a total score of -1 (on a scale of 1 to 100), the occupied areas rank lowest among all countries. Lower than the +12 for ‘unfree’ Russia. Much worse than the +51 for ‘partly free’ Ukraine.
For the political rights component (maximum 40 points), the score even drops to -2. Freedom House states that ‘all executive authority figures’ were imposed by Russian authorities ‘in undemocratic processes’ backed by Russian military power. These administrators, such as collaborating Ukrainians Denis Pushilin (head of Donetsk), Leonid Pasechnik (Luhansk), Yevgeniy Balytskiy (Zaporizhzhia), Vladimir Saldo (Kherson), and the Moldovan-born Sergey Aksyonov (Crimea), are under international sanctions for ‘actions undermining the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine.’ Moscow takes ‘all major policy decisions,’ according to Freedom House. The Russian authorities control the political and electoral system. For the civil liberties component – such as freedom of the press, freedom of speech and the rule of law – the occupied territories score 1 point (out of 60).
Last year, Russia adopted the ‘Strategy of State Cultural Policy until 2030.’ The main goal is ‘the integration of new subjects of the Russian Federation’ into the ‘Russian cultural-humanitarian space’. The focus is much on children. Moscow is not only indoctrinating through schools, but also wants young people to participate more in recreational activities with a ‘military-historical theme’. Tens of thousands of children were sent to ‘summer camps’ in Crimea and Russia last year. To strengthen their patriotism, they had to sing the Russian national anthem and carry the flag, according to OHCHR. They were brainwashed with propaganda about ‘the special military operation’ against Ukraine and also received military training. Preparations for the upcoming summer camps are now in full swing. In addition, the Russian occupying forces introduced a new compulsory subject for young teenagers in 8th grade who get no less than 170 hours of military training, including how to use the main types of grenades, small arms, hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers, and sniper rifles. There are also ‘cadet classes.’ In Crimea, these have existed since 2015 to prepare children for a career in the Russian government or army. ‘The Russian authorities are forcing people to accept the occupation and become Russian,’ Nesterenko says.
‘Passportization’ is what Moscow’s longstanding policy of incorporating Ukrainians is called. On 20 March 2025, Putin decreed that Ukrainians in occupied territory must arrange their ‘legal status’. They must have a Russian passport by 10 September. Otherwise, they will be considered foreigners, lose their rights and even property. ‘If you don’t identify yourself as Russian with a passport, you don’t have access to social services such as pensions and medical care,’ Nesterenko says. The health care is already poor. ‘There is not enough medical staff. The hospital has only one surgeon. People are standing in extremely long lines everywhere,’ Olha explains.
Failure to comply with the ukase has more dramatic consequences. ‘As parents, without a Russian passport, you can no longer register your children for childcare and school. Moreover, a child can be taken to Russia to be placed in a boarding school or Russian family’, Nesterenko states. She stresses the fate of the many thousands of Ukrainian children who have already been abducted to Russia. The International Criminal Court in The Hague has charged Russian president Putin and the children’s commissioner with war crimes because of these mass deportations of children.
Some 3.5 million Russian passports are said to have been issued. But also these citizens are at risk. There is a fear that Ukrainian passport holders will be forced to join the Russian army and be deployed in the war against their own country. ‘Men have already been forcibly recruited,’ says Nesterenko. These practices, of which Ukrainian prisoners are also victims, are war crimes, states Human Rights Watch. The occupying authorities come to homes to go and get men. ‘That is why men go into hiding. Most of them do not want to go to war. They do not want to fight. I know people who died while serving in the Russian army,’ says Olha.
The authoritarian regime uses brutal, systematic repression to subjugate people. Active citizens, such as activists, volunteers, journalists, civil servants, teachers and religious leaders are at risk. People suspected of being pro-Ukrainian are punished mercilessly. Even manicures are a concern. ‘People who paint their nails blue and yellow, or post a photo of someone with a bag from a Ukrainian supermarket on social media such as Facebook or Instagram, can be prosecuted,’ says Nesterenko. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Islamic organizations such as Hizb ut-Tahrir are considered ‘extremist’ and are prosecuted. Nesterenko: ‘It hurts my heart. I am a Muslim myself.’ The ethnic Crimean Tatars are being repressed. The authorities are taking aggressive action against the banned LGBT+ movement.
“My mother always told me to be careful,” says Olha, “because if people are accused of being a traitor, or suspected of providing information to Ukrainian authorities, they can be arrested. What makes it worse is that it takes place in secret. People around you don’t know what happened to you. They think that maybe you’ve moved, while you’re actually held somewhere. This is people’s biggest fear. That if something goes wrong and you’re suspected of being against the regime, you’ll suddenly disappear.” Nesterenko points out that Russian security services are even more brutal in more recently occupied areas. “People are thrown into basements, where they interrogate and extract information.” She continues: “If people have been abducted, there’s no trial with hearings, no charges have been published, and they’re held incommunicado, they can be in detention for a long time without even their families knowing.”
The judiciary is part of the system. Research by ZMINA shows that the courts in occupied territory and Russia are ‘100 percent controlled’ by the Russian top. ‘There is no fair trial’, says Nesterenko. One of her tasks is to monitor the fate of political prisoners. Her list for Crimea alone contains 224 names. ‘These are the people we have information about, where they are being held and under what law. It’s all trumped-up charges of espionage, high treason, extremism and terrorism’, says Nesterenko. She sees how the sentences demanded by judicial authorities have doubled. ‘The main reason why Russia is prosecuting people is to instill fear in society so that other people do not dare to resist or speak out pro-Ukrainian, because then you will be punished.’
The Ukrainian Ombudsman stated that some 16,000 Ukrainian citizens are being illegally held in occupied territory, and at least 1,800 in Russia. Twenty-nine torture chambers have recently been identified. Civilians are being tortured, beaten and sexually abused in captivity. They are subjected to electric shocks, mock executions and suffocation, denied medical care – and die. More than 6,000 Ukrainian prisoners of war are also being held in horrific conditions. Russia has executed at least 100 prisoners of war.
The fate of journalist Viktoria Roshchyna is symbolic of what Ukrainians in custody endure. She disappeared in August 2023 while she was researching in the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia the situation of Ukrainians held in secret locations. For a long time, it was unknown what had happened to her. Ukrainian and international journalists from the Forbidden Stories network and human rights defenders started investigations. They discovered that Roshchyna had been arrested and first held in the ‘garages’, the horrific informal detention centre in occupied Melitopol. In December 2023, she was transferred to the notorious prison in the Russian city of Taganrog. The Russian Ministry of Defence informed her father in April 2024 that she was being held in Russia. When he received a phone call in August, it was his daughter. She was supposed to be released in a prisoner exchange in September. But in October, her father received a short email from the Russian authorities that Roshchyna had died on 19 September 2024.
Last February, Russia handed over hundreds of bodies to Ukraine. One bag was marked ‘unidentified male.’ However, the right shin had a label on it that read ‘Roshchyna, V.V.’ Forensic examination confirmed that the frozen, mummified body was a woman. DNA tests concluded it was Roshchyna.
Yuriy Belousov, head of the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office for War Crimes, noted that there were many signs of torture and abuse. Abrasions, bleeding, a broken rib, neck injuries, and signs of electric shocks on her feet. Several organs are missing, including part of her brain, eyes, and larynx. This may be an attempt to cover up the cause of death. A bruise on her neck suggests she may have been strangled.
ZMINA has a blacklist of at least 260 names of security service officials, judges, prosecutors and detention centers responsible for human rights violations in Crimea. The Czech Republic has imposed sanctions on the peninsula’s head of the prison system.
What does Nesterenko think of the pressure on Ukraine to give up occupied territory? ‘It’s not just about land, it’s about our people, our traditions and so many other things. That’s why we can’t just give our territories away and forget about them,’ she says. And the prospect of peace? ‘What do they mean by peace? Because we have no guarantees that if we give up territory, there will be peace.’
Olha had waited a long time for the Ukrainian army and authorities to return to her place in the Donbas. Her dream was to become a journalist. ‘But I don’t want to spread Russian propaganda.’ She decided to leave. Leaving is difficult for many people. Especially when they take care of elderly relatives and possessions. Others are afraid or don’t have the money for the difficult journey through checkpoints, which involves covering enormous distances through Russia or even Georgia and Belarus. After the invasion, departing Ukrainians first had to go through Russian ‘filtration camps.’ They were registered and checked there, threatened, tortured, raped, detained and even murdered. Currently, the Russian airport Sheremetyevo and facilities in Belarus serve as filtration camps.
‘It was very hard for me to leave my family,’ says Olha. She was nervous about the bus journey, which became a whole series of anxious moments. Olha thought it was imprudent when fellow passengers at checkpoints answered that they were going to Kyiv. ‘Even mentioning that name raises suspicions.’ The Russian security service accused a woman of her son fighting in the Ukrainian army. At the last checkpoint in occupied territory, Olha was given a warning. ‘The soldiers said: “Be careful. We know who you are. We are watching you. Don’t do anything crazy.”’
As darkness fell, the bus drove through Russia. ‘My bags had not yet been checked anywhere. But I was afraid it would happen. I decided to tear up my notebook with Ukrainian literature. I threw the scraps in a trash can.’ All passengers had to wait outside in the harsh weather at the next checkpoint. ‘We were not allowed in during the check. We stood there outside for hours. We felt horrible. Until one guy could not take it anymore and went to shelter.’ There were no reprisals. Though an older Ukrainian man had a hard time. ‘The Russians threatened to beat him. They shouted: are you for us, or are you for them? But he kept shouting: I am for peace.’
Then it was Olha’s turn to go through a luggage check. She had to unlock her phone. Olha had deleted all the texts that could be interpreted as anti-Russian. But on one lady’s phone they found an old message about her hope that the Ukrainian army would come. Two large Russian security officers in military uniforms shouted that they would teach her a lesson. ‘She had to sing the Russian national anthem. Otherwise she wouldn’t be allowed to leave,’ Olha remembers. The stress and fear made it impossible for the woman to do it. A soldier came up with a piece of paper with the national anthem on it. ‘When she started singing, the soldiers sang along. With their hands on their chests.’ But after the first few sentences, the woman stopped. The soldiers looked at each other. No one sang any further. ‘Maybe the soldiers didn’t know more than the first verse,’ Olha laughs. There was another shouting match. After seven hours they were allowed to pass.
Finally, they reached the crossing, where the Ukrainian security service welcomed everyone. Olha felt a burden was lifted from her shoulders. ‘The older man was also so happy. When we were safe, he started cursing Russia.’
Olha lives in Kyiv. As she talks about her new life, studies and part-time job, her voice sounds happier and lighter. ‘It’s so much more modern here. You can pay everywhere with your phone or bank card. In occupied territory, only with cash’, says Olha. She is relieved. ‘I feel free. Not like in the Donbas where I was afraid to be on the streets. I can go to a café, meet people and eat out. It’s a completely different life.’ Although there is also something that makes her sad. ‘There is an aversion to refugees from the Donbas here. They think the eastern part of Ukraine is pro-Russian. I am proof that they are wrong.’ Her wish is for the occupied territories to be liberated. ‘I want the war to stop and Ukraine to become one so that we as a country have a bright future.’
