Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory began in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea, continued in seizing parts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, and further escalated with a full-scale invasion in 2022. From the very first steps of Russian troops on Ukrainian land, Russia initiated a process that is still ongoing - transforming Ukrainian territory into a Russian resource: geographic, social, economic, and symbolic.
Russia destroys residential neighbourhoods, schools, hospitals, and cultural heritage sites, demolishes infrastructure and utility systems, thereby turning Ukrainian cities into territories that can be rebuilt at Moscow's will or into areas that become uninhabitable.
The city was destroyed over many days, so the number of civilian casualties is still unknown.
After the city was captured, entire neighbourhoods were levelled to the ground by Russian authorities, along with people who died there, and new neighbourhoods were built in their place, which the Kremlin constantly broadcasts to Russian society. Those who remained faced a new system of Russian control, while thousands of Ukrainians were forcibly displaced or deported.
In temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories, Russia has abducted and unlawfully detained civilians, subjected them to torture, and targeted activists, journalists, local officials, veterans, and pro-Ukrainian residents. Some disappear, while others are forced to cooperate with the occupation authorities simply to survive.
Russia has deported and forcibly displaced Ukrainians, while creating conditions that push others to leave: through repression, insecurity, the destruction of livelihoods, and the imposition of Russian laws and documents. Russia has encouraged or facilitated the arrival of its own citizens, including people from economically and socially vulnerable regions of Russia.
By replacing Ukrainian citizens with people from different parts of Russia, the occupation creates a new reality that Moscow can later present as this: these territories are Russian because Russians now live there.
Obtaining Russian citizenship or documents can become a condition for accessing basic services, employment, or legal rights, while refusing to comply can expose people to additional pressure and repression. This creates an environment in which Ukrainian residents can be and already are subjected to Russian military mobilisation and forced to serve in Russian armed formations.
Referendums in temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories were held under military occupation, coercion, and without conditions required for a free and legitimate vote. The UN and other international organisations condemned them as illegal: a decision about Ukraine's future cannot be made through votes held at gunpoint.
Over the past decade, Russia's occupation extended beyond Crimea into the Azov Sea, transforming it into a region of military, economic, and political control through occupation, the construction of the Kerch Bridge, navigation restrictions, port seizures, and resource exploitation. Moscow has transformed an entire maritime region into an instrument of strategic dominance.
Ukrainian children have been forcibly transferred from temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories to Russia or to other Russian-controlled areas, sometimes under the guise of temporary evacuation, "holidays", or safety. In many cases, their return has been obstructed, while Russian authorities have placed children in their care system, changed their legal status or documents, and made it harder for families to find and bring them home.
Russia seeks to reshape the environment in which children grow up: placing them in the Russian education system, exposing them to state propaganda and militarised patriotic education, and teaching them a version of history in which Ukraine is denied as an independent nation. The aim is to change children's understanding of who they are, where they come from and what country they belong to.
Russia's occupation also targets Ukraine's culture, history, and identity. It destroys or removes monuments, museums, books, archives, and other symbols of Ukrainian heritage, while simultaneously trying to erase their meaning from people's memory - especially among children. Through education, propaganda, and the narrative of a "Russian people", Russia seeks to convince Ukrainians that their history and identity are inseparable from Russia,
turning cultural erasure into another instrument of occupation.
When Russia seizes Ukrainian territory, it gains access to assets, infrastructure, natural resources, businesses, agricultural land and strategic transport routes.
Businesses, homes, land and other assets belonging to Ukrainians who have fled occupied territories can be declared "abandoned" or otherwise transferred into the control of occupation authorities. This creates a system in which displacement can become economically profitable:people lose their homes and businesses, while the occupying power gains new assets. The same applies to logistics.
Occupation turns territory into a resource - and people living on it into both a source of revenue and a workforce for the occupying power.
Russia's occupation of Ukrainian territories is a coordinated strategy aimed at permanently integrating these territories into Russia and erasing Ukrainian identity. Russia is destroying cities, deporting people and children, changing demographics and identity, forcing Ukrainians to work and fight on the occupier's side, as well as appropriating property, resources, and the economic potential of territories.
Russian occupation of Ukrainian lands began 12 years ago, and it continues every day since - against Ukrainians who remain in occupied territories, as well as against those who have left but whose loved ones or their hometowns remain under Russian control.
The world must know that Russian occupation is a systematic process of destroying everything Ukrainian on those lands.
The longer the occupation continues, the deeper roots of this process become.
UkraineWorld has already published and continues to publish articles about the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, offering its readers the opportunity to learn more about seized territories and people still living there:
This list will be expanded and updated.
