The destruction of the Ukrainian population in the occupied territories is a well-thought-out policy of Russia

Karolina Gird, a researcher at the Institute for the Study of War, says that Putin’s goal is to destroy the Ukrainian identity in the occupied territories and settle them with Russians.

Russia’s occupation of Ukraine involves a deliberate campaign of ethnic cleansing so that the occupied Ukrainian territories cannot be returned, according to analysts of the Washington Institute for the Study of War.

Russian occupation policy is designed to create an “irreversible impact on several generations” and isolate Ukraine from the West. To do this, the Russians use a “strategy of forced depopulation and resettlement.”

Thus, by changing the demographic picture of the occupied territories of Ukraine, the Russians hope to make the return of these territories impossible, analysts note in a new report.

Karolina Gird, a researcher at the Institute for the Study of War, says that Russia is using this tactic, which is already “working successfully” in the case of Crimea and Donbas, which were seized back in 2014, because “Western leaders regularly ask whether Ukraine should even try to liberate Crimea and part of Donbas”.

At the same time, the researcher notes that such questions are being asked despite the fact that “the status of these lands under international law is the same as that of any other part of sovereign, independent Ukraine.”

In a report entitled “Kremlin scenario of occupation: forced Russification and ethnic cleansing in occupied Ukraine”, the researcher writes that in this way Russia is trying to convince Western countries of the irreversible nature of its occupation of Ukrainian territories.

Gird believes that Putin’s goal is to destroy Ukrainian identity, language and culture, and therefore “dry, abstract, “realistic” discussions about pressuring Ukraine to make “concessions” – “exchange land for peace” – ignore the reality of war.”

“This war is as much about people as it is about land, and Western leaders cannot ignore the consequences of the policies they are pursuing and demanding,” Gird said.

The researcher says that the scenario of ethnic cleansing is not something new in the history of Russia – the Soviet government acted in the same way when it relocated ethnic minorities in the territories it wanted to keep.

“The dynamics of depopulation/repopulation and resulting demographic changes are intended to undermine Ukraine’s claims to its own territory by importing Russians who will participate in Russian-controlled civil society and political processes,” the report says.

The researcher notes that “by physically removing the people of Ukraine, their culture and society from Ukraine’s own lands,” the appearance of popular support for the Russian occupation is created.

In its report late last year, the international human rights organization Amnesty International claims that the Russian authorities are forcibly relocating and deporting civilians from the occupied territories of Ukraine, including children, the elderly and people with disabilities.

Amnesty International’s report calls these actions “amount to war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.”

International human rights defenders have documented “how Russian and Russian-controlled forces have forcibly relocated civilians from occupied Ukraine further into Russian-controlled territory or into Russia.”

Also, a number of international media, in particular the Associated Press agency and the New York Times newspaper, prepared their own investigations, in which they discovered cases of forced transportation of Ukrainians, including children, to the territory of Russia.