authorities appointed by Kremlin in the province of Ukraine hersonlocated in the south of the country and occupied by Russian troops from the first days infestationcivilian population this Thursday go to russia to “protect” itself from the “daily missile attacks” that the region is exposed to as a result of ukrainian counterattack. your governor, Vladimir Balancethe province recently mentioned in a video annexed decided to give it to them. option to travel to other regions between Russian Federation to rest and study,” he added, adding that they should take their children with them. Shortly after the announcement, Russia’s deputy prime minister said that the Kremlin would help organize the residents’ departure.
At first glance everything looks white and bottled: occupation authorities They do not have everything and have decided to evacuate the civilian population in the face of the Ukrainian advance in the south of the country. An operation that allowed Kiev save more than 1,000 square kilometers in northeastern Kherson, the farthest part from the capital, the only place fully controlled by his forces from the state capitals. “It is likely that in recent days the Russian occupation authorities have ordered the evacuation of some civilians from Kherson,” he said on Thursday. British military intelligence in the daily combat assessment. “They’re probably waiting for the war to spread to Kherson.”
However, given Ukraine’s precedents, the announcement is not interpreted that way in Ukraine. Crimea, was also annexed by the Kremlin eight years ago. Since Russia took over in 2014, at least 600,000 Russians They moved to the peninsula, a figure where academic studies reached one million, according to the Ukrainian government. At the same time, the Ukrainian population has decreased as a result of various strategies. Persecution of pro-Ukrainian activists wave compulsory military service in the Russian army.
Mandatory population transfers
“Similar to what happened in the incident Crimea“, Oleksiy Melnyk, a military analyst at the Kyiv-based Razumkov Center and former director of the Analysis Department of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, assures this newspaper. genocidal bias policy formed changing demographics eventually replacing the Ukrainian population with the Russian population”.
this compulsory population transfers They were common currency at the time. soviet eraespecially at times stalin. And in this war, they became the order of the day. “Russia and its allied forces are transferring Ukrainian civilians, including those fleeing Ukraine. hostilities“The territories occupied by the forces of the Russian Federation and Ukraine,” he said. Human Rights Watch. The organization is one of these applications. “war crime” and “potentially a crime against humanity”.
Russian citizenship
This Thursday, the invitation made by the governor of the occupation forces to the civilians of Kherson, according to number two, was later clarified “this is not an order”it technically doesn’t force anyone to move to Russia, but it arrives less than 10 days after Moscow has handed over all the Ukrainians. four annexed regions (Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, Lugansk) one month to accept or reject Russian citizenship. “Those who won’t lose their rights. And I’m not talking about being able to vote in Russian elections, but being able to sell their property or get a lot of jobs. They’re basically going to be discriminated against officially,” explains Melnyk. . So the proposal to go to Russia is more than an invitation. “Those who left are going to remote areas, and many of them have no money to return later,” adds the Ukrainian analyst.