In the temporarily occupied territories, the Russians are massively confiscating housing, enterprises, land, and deposits – human rights activists

In the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, the Russians are confiscating citizens’ housing, commercial enterprises, agricultural land, and mineral deposits.

This is stated in the analytical report “Confiscation”, which was presented to the public association “Eastern Human Rights Group” and the public association “Institute for Strategic Studies and Security”.

The director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Security, Pavlo Lysyansky, noted that as of 2024, 856,499 apartments had been confiscated in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. In particular, 80% of commercial real estate was confiscated in occupied Luhansk.

“This is despite the fact that since 2014, those who supported the occupation administrations have been able to conduct business there. So even these commercial enterprises are being confiscated from them,” Lysyansky emphasized, adding that this concerns both the real estate of those people who left the temporarily occupied territories and those who remained there.

According to the report, the number of Ukrainian citizens who left the occupation and can visit the temporarily occupied territories has significantly decreased due to filtration measures. In particular, this year only 21,272 people visited the temporarily occupied territories, which is ten times less than before 2023.

“When they started confiscating property, people started going there to somehow save it: either transfer it to friends, or sell it somehow. But entry for such people was already closed,” Lysyansky noted.

At the same time, the Russians are putting up for sale housing confiscated from Ukrainian citizens for Russian citizens at only 2%, while the mortgage rate in Russia today is 27-30%.

“They also sell this confiscated property at 2%, thus luring Russian citizens to the occupied territories and “tying” them there for decades. So, almost a million apartments were confiscated, and then sold. They built a whole business on this,” Lysyansky emphasized.

In addition, mineral deposits were confiscated in the temporarily occupied territories: 784 in Donetsk region, 478 in Luhansk region, 140 in Zaporizhia region, 59 in Kherson region.