Russia evicts indigenous population – Melitopol launches mortgage for IDPs from Russia

The occupation authorities have moved to a more aggressive phase of the policy of “replacing” the population in temporarily occupied territories. In particular, in the annexed Melitopol.

This was reported by the head of the Center for the Study of Occupation, Petro Andryushchenko. According to him, now the Russians are more actively expelling Ukrainians from the occupied territories than accepting new IDPs from the territory of the Russian Federation. According to his information, this trend is observed almost everywhere, with the exception of certain districts of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

“Ukrainians should not remain in the occupied territories” – “It does not matter to them (Russians) where they go – to Ukraine, to the European Union or disperse across the territory of the Russian Federation. The main thing for the Russians is that Ukrainians do not remain in the occupied territories, because such a concentration of Ukrainians in one place is considered quite dangerous for them,” – Andryuschenko said.

He emphasized that residents who remained in the temporarily occupied territories, in particular in Melitopol, are being massively ousted from public and political life. Participation in occupation activities is actually imposed only through administrative resources.

“Ukrainians do not show much desire to participate in propaganda activities, so the Russians have to involve state employees and citizens imported from Russia in this,” – Andryuschenko said.

“We expect that after the end of the Russian May holidays, the campaign of purges, inspections and filtration will intensify even more in the occupied territories,” he said.

Melitopol under threat of demographic replacement Andryuschenko separately emphasized that in Melitopol, the Russians intend to implement a program of long-term settlement of the occupied territory by IDPs from the Russian Federation. According to him, this involves launching mortgage programs similar to those already operating in Mariupol.

“Now in Melitopol, as in Mariupol, they are launching a mortgage construction program. This is done in order to encourage Russians to move to the occupied territories and thereby replace the local population,” he explained.

According to the expert, the policy of replacing the Ukrainian population will be long-term, relying on administrative, economic and forceful instruments of pressure.