From the MT:
“We Can’t Condemn the People
of Occupied Ukraine to the Reality of Russian Occupation”
(A man is seen in the city of
Mariupol, in Russian-controlled Ukraine.)
“The Temporarily Occupied
Territories of Ukraine” is such a dehumanizing phrase. It allows us to forget
that there are people living there at all. Certainly, that makes life easier
for Russians and Westerners. But ignorance of what is happening negates the
possibility of any meaningful discussion on how to end the war. Omitting these
regions and their communities from the conversation obscures the true nature of
Russia’s actions and intentions.
To understand Russia’s ultimate
goals, we must look to how it behaves when it achieves them, as in the cities
of Mariupol and Melitopol, or the former cities – now ruins – of Vovchansk,
Bakhmut, Avdiivka. Even a fleeting glance will reveal abundant evidence of
torture, cultural destruction, brutal repression and genocide. Once your eyes adjust to the gruesome glare,
Russia’s objectives come into crystal-clear view: the erasure of Ukrainian
identity, the creation of buffer zones against the West, and the obliteration
of any resistance to the Kremlin’s grip.
Once they have asserted control
over a new territory, if there is anything or anyone left, Russian occupiers
work to systematically dismantle the region’s Ukrainian identity, deforming it
into an imagined regional quirk – the “Little Russian” bumpkins.
While there is plenty of physical
destruction – Bakhmut and Soledar are
not being rebuilt – Russia’s actions go beyond razing cities. Cultural erasure
is a cornerstone of its occupation strategy. They destroy and remove Ukrainian
literature from libraries and destroy and remove Holodomor memorials — a
poignant symbol of Ukraine’s historical suffering. The Ukrainian language is
under relentless attack. Such policies are designed not merely to suppress
dissent but to erase the cultural and historical fabric of Ukraine in its own
lands.
Russian occupation forces are not
satisfied with destroying the Ukrainian past and present so they also seek to
eradicate its future by targeting Ukrainian children. By December 2024,
Ukrainian officials reported that over 19,500 children had been forcibly
transferred from their homes to Russia. These children are subjected to
"re-education" programs designed to strip them of their Ukrainian
identity and assimilate them into Russian society. Families are torn apart, as
in the case of Sashko from Mariupol, separated from his mother during the
filtration process, never to see her again. Or for Yevhen, who was detained in
Olenivka while his children were sent to a Moscow boarding facility. The forced
adoption of deported children further compounds these violations by
contravening the principles enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the
Rights of the Child (CRC). According to Russian media reporting, one stolen
child was adopted by a Russian soldier suspected of committing war crimes in
Bucha in February-March 2022.
Those children lucky enough to
remain with their parents under occupation still undergo forced indoctrination
in Russian schools, where they are taught to hate Ukraine. Nor is there much
else to bring joy: life under Russian control is marked by economic
exploitation and severe repression. In Donetsk, children were forced to make
trench candles for Russian forces over their winter holidays. Municipal workers
in Zaporizhzhia have gone without salaries for over six months, while Mariupol
residents are permanently denied housing to replace what they lost during the
war.
Access to basic resources is
weaponized: in some regions, coal for heating is withheld from those who refuse
to accept Russian passports. Meanwhile, the only roads being built are to help
bring troops to the frontline, turning civilian regions into military
fortresses. The only real economic activity is the extraction of mineral wealth
and grain to be transported onwards, away from Ukraine.
Yet, despite the immense
repression, resistance in the occupied territories remains active and
determined. The final week of December, for example, saw car bombings in Nova
Kakhovka and Berdyansk, killing Russian
Major Alexey Kornakov and Vasyl Nechet, head of the Berdyansk occupation
council, respectively. The Mariupol Resistance sabotaged several vehicles
belonging to Russian officers over this period, while in Melitopol, local
partisans reported conducting another car bombing against occupation officials.
On 30 December, the resistance assassinated one collaborator and seriously
injured another in Oleshky, situated on the occupied left bank of the Kherson
region.
These acts, carried out under the
most repressive conditions imaginable — where possessing a phone with the
encrypted Signal messaging app will likely lead to torture — are a testament to
desperation and determination.
They also highlight the absurdity
of Russian propaganda. If the occupied territories wanted to be part of Russia,
why does this incredible resistance persist three years in? If Ukrainians in
east Ukraine are Russians anyway: why do the occupiers need to ban Ukrainian
language and culture and destroy symbols of Ukrainian identity? And, if Russia
invaded to protect Russian speakers, why have they killed so many Russian
speakers?
It is as if Russia is not even
trying to make the propaganda convincing. But then it doesn’t really have to
try: so many Western leaders are willing to bend over backward to understand
Russia and its so-called security concerns. Ignoring the people being tortured
and murdered in the occupied territories makes it much easier to pretend this
is about NATO expansion.
Consequently, despite the scale
of the atrocities, the voices of those in the occupied territories are
silenced—not only by Russia but also by the West. This is because acknowledging
the horrors inflicted by the Russian occupying forces undermines the argument
that there is a pathway to peace with the Kremlin, exposing its proponents as,
at best, misinformed and, at worst, purveyors of appeasement.
The occupied territories provide a clear view of the kind of world Russia seeks to create. They expose a regime that is not interested in peace but in domination. Russia’s genocidal actions, cultural erasure, and repression in these areas are not anomalies — they are the blueprint for its broader ambitions. Any negotiation that ignores these realities is doomed to failure, as it fundamentally misjudges the nature of the regime that Ukraine is fighting.
The horrors of the occupied
territories present the West with a moral choice. They ask us not to imagine
but to accept a world where Ukrainian mothers, living in Ukrainian territory,
in their home city, are threatened with having their children taken away,
deported to Russia and rendered untraceable unless they accept a Russian
passport.
Of course, one may argue, these
territories are lost anyway, these people are already terrorized, and their
children have already been kidnapped - what can we do about it? The answer is
at the very least to acknowledge their suffering and incorporate it into our
analysis of Russia’s war. For the more ambitious, one might suggest preventing
Russia’s occupation from advancing further. Russia’s consistent negotiation
stance – that it have full control of the four territories it claims as its own
– would see currently millions of Ukrainians handed over to this abject moral
universe.
Despite the insistent tea-leaf
reading of many Western commentators, there is little evidence to support the
notion that the Kremlin is interested in any lasting peace. Of course, even if it were, that would
provide very little comfort to Ukrainians, often metonymized as territories,
doomed to live with this so-called peace of occupation. If you want a picture
of that peace, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.
^ While Russia commits Cultural
Genocide and War Crimes (including forcibly deporting 19,600 Ukrainian Children
to Russia where they have the "Ukrainian" beaten out of them)
Ordinary Russians have to survive the Russian Occupation until it ends (just
like their Ukrainian Grandparents had to survive the German Occupation during
World War 2.) ^
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