Property rights are not an obstacle: the Russians intend to confiscate more than 1,700 homes in the Temporarily Occupied Territories of the Kherson Region

Seizing private houses and apartments from their legal owners is a seemingly unimaginable outrage and savagery for the 21st century. However, this is exactly what Russian Russians are currently doing on the left bank of the Kherson region. Moreover, they practice it en masse, without even trying to somehow justify their crimes.

Starting from April of this year, the occupying authorities of the Kherson region began to publish lists with the addresses of residential buildings and apartments in various settlements of the occupied part of the region. The Russians called these lists “Residential premises that have signs of ownerless property.”

The Russians demand that Ukrainians, whose homes are included in the above-mentioned lists, appear within 30 days at the occupying “Ministry of Property and Land Relations of the Kherson Region”, located in the village of Shchaslyvtseve, Henichesky District, with a Russian passport and documents confirming ownership of dwelling. In case of non-appearance or lack of documents, houses and apartments will be taken away.

The occupation authorities publish lists of Ukrainian homes that the Russians have set their sights on on their website. The number of addresses published on this site for the period from July 10 to 24. And the results are terrifying. The number of residential addresses of Ukrainians, which the Russians call “homeless”, located in the former districts of the Kherson region:

Velikolepetyskyі district – 73 houses;

Verkhnorogachytskyi – 122;

Henicheskyi – 14;

Holoprystanskyі – 40;

Gornostaevskyі – 324;

Ivanovsky – 87;

Kalanchatskyi – 441;

Kakhovskyі – 16;

Novokakhovskyi (the Russians separated, in particular, Nova Kakhovka and Tavriysk into a separate so-called “municipal district”) – 28;

Nizhnyosyrogozsky – 24;

Oleshkivskyi – 35;

Skadovskyі – 360;

Chaplinskyі – 182.

In total, the lists published by the Russians in July of this year included 1,746 addresses of houses and apartments of Ukrainians, which the Russians are going to suppress if they do not

However, no documents will be able to protect the home if the Russians decide to appropriate it. After all, the so-called “authority” and “law” in the occupation are just a fairy tale to please the eyes. An example of this is the story of a family from one of the villages of the Heniche community, which is told by the Center for Journalistic Investigations.

At the beginning of May 2024, the owners of a residential building in the resort village of Henicheska hromada found a message on the gate from representatives of the occupation authorities demanding to provide legal documents for housing and a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation. The owners of the house had to contact the occupying “Ministry of Property and Land Relations Temporarily Occupied Territories of the Kherson Region” within 10 days. In case of non-appearance, the Russians threatened to declare the house “ownerless” and take it away.

The owners of the house provided the Russians with the originals of all documents confirming their ownership of this real estate. Employees of the “ministry” made copies of the necessary documents, sewed them into a folder and assured the owners that their house was now in the stage of registration in the Russian state register.

However, already on June 25, six men broke into the apartment building, broke the locks and broke the door with crowbars. The next day, they returned again, together with employees of the Russian “court” of the Temporarily occupied territories of the Kherson region. Uninvited guests showed the owners of the house a photocopy of the “agreement” on the transfer of their property to the use of the “court”, allegedly signed on June 25, 2024.

When the homeowners contacted the so-called “Ministry of Property and Land Affairs” again, they were told that some of the title deeds they provided did not contain any stamps, so the occupation authorities would not recognize them.

“However, for at least 8 years, no one has put or demanded any seals on the official extracts from the Ukrainian state register of property rights to immovable property, they contain a QR code. “Wet” seals are on the originals of the construction passport, technical passport and other documents provided. But this was not enough for the occupiers,” the interlocutors of the Center for Journalistic Investigations reported.

Then the family began to be persuaded to give up their home voluntarily. But after receiving a refusal, they threatened to take the house by force along with all personal belongings.

“Representatives of the occupation authorities choose the most desirable objects for themselves, break into these apartments, evict those who live there, and settle their workers. They are not interested in any kind of houses. Only the best, spacious and modern. No documents on ownership of the property will stop them,” a resident of Arabatskaya strelka told the Center for Journalistic Investigations.

Another confirmation that the wild Russians do not care about anyone’s property rights is also a recent message from the Yellow Ribbon resistance movement. So, in the temporarily occupied Skadovsk, Russians are actively looking for empty houses and asking to live. However, the locals refuse to provide housing, which leads to cases of coercion.