By Chris Muhizi for MCN.
According to a recent US report, Ukrainians who reside in Russian-occupied territory are being pressured to adopt Russian citizenship or face retaliation, including the possibility of being deported or jailed
According to the Guardians researchers from Yale University discovered that residents of the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia were the targets of a deliberate campaign to erase their Ukrainian identity.
Ukrainians who choose not to apply for Russian citizenship “are subjected to threats, intimidation, restrictions on humanitarian aid and basic necessities, and possible detention or deportation, all designed to force them to become Russian citizens,” according to the report.
The executive director of Yale School of Public Health Nathaniel Raymond told CNN that Russia’s actions were “classic war crimes in the sense that they are restricting or limiting through this process people’s ability to access critical services and resources that Russia is required to allow all people to access, such as healthcare and humanitarian systems.”
Following the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of Ukrainian territory since the start of its full-scale invasion in 2022, Moscow claims to have issued Russian passports to more than 3 million Ukrainians since 2014.
A timeline of increasingly forceful actions taken to persuade or force Ukrainians to become Russian citizens was provided in the report, beginning in May 2014, the month that Russia illegitimately annexed Crimea. The timeline moves on to July 2024, at which point residents who do not have Russian citizenship will be regarded as “foreigners” or “stateless” and may be detained in detention centers or repatriated to Russia under new Russian laws.
While states have a lot of latitude under international law when it comes to bestowing citizenship, customary international law expressly forbids imposing citizenship against someone’s will or under duress, according to the report.
Additional Source: The guardians.
