The so-called "Crimean administration" and some Russian officials are coming to the newly occupied territories to secure this sphere of influence through public relations and possibly divert attention from the problems in the regions now assigned to them. And the Ukrainian authorities must use all available means to maintain contact with the occupied territories, particularly not to withdraw the hryvnia, and to adapt the fundamental guarantees and procedures established since 2014 for more internally displaced persons. OPORA's experts and invited guests spoke about this during "Occupied" live broadcast on May 23.
OPORA is launching a new series of weekly online broadcasts "Occupied", where experts of the organization and guests talk about life in Ukrainian communities under russian occupation. The weekly updates cover the situation in the newly occupied territories and in those that Russia has seized since 2014. Another important aspect of the discussion will be people who have been forced to leave these territories and move to other communities in Ukraine or abroad.
According to OPORA's analyst Oleksandr Neberykut, we must see the situation in the occupied territories, strategies and scenarios, and how they're developing. People who had to leave these territories are another story. There are two aspects here - how people cope and how the state works with them. "We think it's unfair that these issues are not monitored systematically. Of course, people who should be interested in this and follow this topic are, in fact, interested. But from the point of view of public conversation, there is little information about it. We get some fragmentary information about some mistakes or various epic stories of the temporary occupation administration in these regions, but there is no general picture," Oleksandr Neberykut said.
Oleksandr Kliuzhev, OPORA's senior analyst, believes that the situation in the occupied territories should be carefully monitored and promptly responded to every event, including new sanctions, without waiting for glaring violations. "We have to monitor all russia's steps in all temporarily occupied territories without any exception. We must not wait for any daring decisions from the occupying state because such a creeping system of occupation of territories is now used by russia. And I believe that our Western partners must not just sit back and wait for sanctions until putin or someone else announces long-term plans for these territories. They must also respond to the specific steps that the occupier is already taking in those territories to control them and control the people who live there," he said.
When it comes to Crimea, according to Kliuzhev, it's evident that the so-called "leaders" of Crimea are the locomotive of justifying russian aggression and promoters of the most provocative and unacceptable theses. They often make statements louder than other russian politicians. Such an attempt by Crimean officials to be "more putin-like than putin himself" is to earn extraordinary powers in Crimea to control the newly occupied territories near the peninsula either. Also, the expert notes that the statements of Crimean "officials" of different levels contain a thesis about the actual embezzlement of the stolen in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. They don't hide it. They brag about it. For example, the illegal restoration of water to Crimea.
However, parallel messages for residents are spreading in the information field of Crimea. The so-called "special operation" symbols are propagated in the Crimean infosphere. Simultaneously, lower-level Crimean officials repeatedly say that Crimeans illegally drafted into the russian army will not participate in the war with Ukraine. "They're trying to balance. On the one hand, they're pumping up mobilization resources, possibly voluntary, by propaganda. On the other hand, for the citizens of Ukraine living there, they're making an amendment that no one will be forcibly involved in hostilities," Kliuzhev said. In addition, according to reports in the information space, repressions are intensifying in Crimea. According to the analyst, it can be assumed that it is related to the russian law on "fakes" about the armed forces of the aggressor state.
"The vacation season is a very painful topic for the Crimean occupation administration. And, of course, their target audience is russian citizens. They're worried that russian citizens will be afraid to come to Crimea for vacation, so they're constantly promoting that it's safe there, despite the flights from russia to Crimea being canceled. They promise various additional trains, etc. It's a painful topic for them. And I understand that indeed, russian citizens who planned to rest illegally in the Crimea abandon this idea, given russia's war against Ukraine," said Oleksandr Kliuzhev. According to him, for the corrupted system of the occupied Crimea, newly occupied territories are not just a challenge but also an opportunity to cover up the problems they created. Now they justify their participation in the maintenance or occupation of new territories.
The same story, Kliuzhev believes, can be told about the newly occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where the representatives of russian regions are fighting for PR in these territories, especially in Mariupol. "Apart from some specific interest in resource control, there is also an attempt to show that we, in fact, are necessary for putin's system in order for it to receive bonuses and cover up certain problems that exist in their territories, not in the occupied ones," he said.
Another trend in the newly occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, according to Kliuzhev, is the establishment of occupation administrations and their units from the so-called pension fund to the police. This is happening even in destroyed cities and villages. "I'm not ready to make predictions about russia's plans. If they really want to control this territory (Mariupol - ed.), they will succeed. But it seems that they are all aware of the impossibility of restoring all that they destroyed by insane warfare methods," he said.
According to the analyst, representatives of the Donetsk and Luhansk occupation administrations are funny trying to show that they have reached the diplomacy level after putin recognized them. The meeting of the so-called "l/dpr" foreign ministers in Moscow with the DPRK ambassador to russia is presented as a great achievement in the information field. But russia is still in no hurry to appoint so-called ambassadors to the pseudo-republics.
An interesting signal, according to the analyst, is the situation regarding the economic and educational integration of "l/dpr" with russia. Residents of the occupied territories can withdraw money from russian bank cards, but, as it turned out, only through the South Ossetian bank, which has been operating there for a long time. "On the one hand, putin recognizes these territories. On the other hand, the ru government doesn't want to put itself under additional sanctions, so it uses these intermediaries. The same situation is with further integration of education," Kliuzhev said.
The situation is the same with the further integration of educational institutions. The concept "umbrella universities" was introduced in the occupied territories, when there are curators from russian universities over the so-called "universities" in Donetsk and Luhansk. They offer a double diploma to young people. In fact, this isn't new, but is presented as an achievement at this stage after putin recognized them.
The topic of forced mobilization also remained relevant. This week, the occupation administrations expanded the grounds for postponing the mobilization. This may be a reaction to the sentiments in the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions. But this war crime still continues.
According to Alyona Lunova, advocacy manager at the ZMINA Human Rights Center, the Ukrainian state is in a situation where it needs to restructure its policy on internally displaced persons and occupied territories. "At the time of the full-scale invasion, there were officially about 1.5 million IDPs in Ukraine. About a third of them remained in the occupied territories. We do not know how many were IDPs, but now IOM estimates more than 7 million IDPs," she said.
Until February 24, the Ukrainian state declared that the main policy in the field of internal migration is the integration of IDPs. Currently, according to Lunova, this is no longer the case, because we don't know the whole face of internal displacement due to lack of information. "In general, internal displacement is now a very different phenomenon than in 2014. Now the policy should be aimed at adapting migrants to new conditions, and the integration of those who want to stay, and their possible returning back later," Alyona Lunova said.
The expert said that now the state is extinguishing fires. Initially, assistance was provided to all, but since May, support is provided only to those who left the occupied territories or whose housing in the controlled area was destroyed. That is, the state helps those in the biggest need. On the good side, we don't have to prepare the legal framework from scratch. Since 2014 there have been laws and government resolutions, ie, basic guarantees already exist. According to Lunova, we need just adapt them to the migrants' number 8 times greater, which is difficult but possible.
Another important point is that the legislation on financial support for displaced persons has changed 4 or 5 times in the last 3 months. According to the speaker, politicy has not been established yet, it is unpredictable. For comparison, Lunova cites budget calculations to support migrants: this year it was at the level of UAH 3 billion, and after February 24, the monthly budget amounted to UAH 6 billion. These are absolutely unaffordable funds for the state, the expert believes. "Therefore, we must move from simple administration to a more complex system, but take into account the needs. This requires a slightly more complex system of service management and a little more training of people who now register and provide assistance to migrants," she said.
Compared to the forced relocation of 2014, some officials have previously allowed themselves to argue about the temporary nature of the problems of IDPs and, consequently, to ignore them. Even though, according to opinion polls, about 80% of IDPs did not plan to return, but wanted to integrate into the host communities. "I see now that there is no such resistance to any long-term integration programs. But the question is how much people want to integrate into host communities. Many people have come to communities where it will be difficult to integrate: due to lack of jobs, because these are small settlements or those not designed for a large number of people. ... But now the state definitely doesn't understand many things, which are necessary. There's no more or less stable system of assessment and forecasting the IDPs needs," Lunova said. According to her, now there's no postponement as in 2014. The National Council for the Reconstruction of Ukraine from the Consequences of the War has a group on the return of Ukrainian citizens. Its directions are both the return of IDPs and integrating them into new communities.
Therefore, the main trends in the internal migration are a certain unpredictability of financial support, easier administration of this support (lack of different grounds for assistance and restrictions), and the presence of a certain regulatory framework in which we move.
According to Alyona Lunova, state approaches to the occupied territories have not changed, because the borders of the temporarily occupied territories have not actually changed. "Today, the state has not identified those territories as de facto under occupation, although they are occupied under the framework of international humanitarian law. They are not occupied in accordance with our national law," she said. This complicates the extension of decisions previously applied to the occupied territories. At the same time, after the amendment of the Law on the occupied territories, it concerns not only Crimea but all occupied territories. But the approach is the same.
"But what makes the 2022 situation so different from 2014 is that the situation was unclear for those who remained in the occupation. Like now, in fact. They didn't know when the territory will be liberated, how to behave, or how to cooperate/not cooperate, keep/not keep in touch with your work. Now it's also unclear, but an article of the Criminal Code has been added. Because unfortunately, the only answer that the state gave to the inhabitants of the occupied territories is that it added two new articles to the CCU - on collaboration activities and assistance to the occupying power. This significantly complicated communication with the inhabitants of the occupied territories. There's no communication anyway because there is a front line," Alyona Lunova said.
Now people remain blocked in the occupied territories without the opportunity to leave. Expert says people are in this situation from the beginning. There was no discussion on leaving - there was no opportunity. And there's criminal responsibility of wide interpretation.
"We must analyze the practice of 2014-2015 and learn from it. We had a negative experience when we took the hryvnia from the occupied territories - the ruble came in very quickly. It's easy to withdraw currency from circulation, but it's important to keep it here," Lunova said.
The expert notes that our task as a state is to keep in touch with the people under occupation as closely as possible, not to leave them without communication, and to try to communicate through all possible channels, especially since there is communication there.
As for the trends in the occupied territories of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv regions, OPORA's analyst Oleksandr Neberykut believes: "russian federation does not have any full-fledged strategy for the management of these newly occupied territories. This is either chaos or, in fact, imitation".
He noted that there is a network of so-called "military-civil administrations" in these territories. But in fact, there is chaos in terms of subordination and completeness of these bodies. Such an imitation which is a reflection of our steps (military-civil administrations, curatorial regions, etc.) could lead in a week or two to the same russian imitation of the "Marshall Plan".
Neberykut believes they are constructing all this on the fly, as there was an expectation that the idea of how the regions will behave works. They probably thought there would be more collaborationism and loyalty, especially on the part of status people - officials and others. That is why they have to invate the non-locals. But if you look at the portrait of these so-called Gauleiters, there is a question of how such marginals can turn into a showcase and an image of power.
In his opinion, the efficiency of the state and the correct patriotic position of local authorities here was that they did not give grounds to ensure continuity of the occupying power, as was the case with Crimea. "The top of the russian government in the kremlin doesn't understand what is the ultimate goal of this russian occupation. The expected scenario for them is the inclusion of these territories as some subjects of russia. And now they are very cautious about it," Neberykut said. He believes for us it is to some extent also a positive signal that there were no blanks and everything is drawn on the fly. In his opinion, they do not have a plan to maintain these newly occupied territories, but there is probably a plan to escape through Crimea.
Summing up, senior analyst Oleksandr Kliuzhev recalls the example of the ORDLO territory: "The fact that the occupier does not invest in the territory does not mean that it is going to give up this territory." He also calls not just to wait for some critical decisions from the occupying power but to punish him directly at all stages.
The broadcast video is available for viewing on the Facebook page and the YouTube channel of OPORA.