Why are the Russians seizing housing in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine?

The Russians are “hunting” for the housing of Ukrainians who left the occupied cities and villages. Their homes are “nationalized” so that new owners, as a rule, from the Russian Federation, can then settle there.

This practice is not new and it all happened in Crimea in 2014. As the economist, executive director of the Economic Discussion Club Oleg Pendzyn told, we can also mention the policy that the Russians have been conducting in Mariupol since 2022.

What scenario are the Russians preparing in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine

“Ukrainians have faced such things for a long time. Remember the year 1937, remember what was done in the territories of Lviv Oblast, when the soviets entered there, what was the situation with real estate, housing. These are very similar things,” Oleg Pendzyn said.

Now the Russians have come up with the so-called “punishment” for people who remained loyal to Ukraine and left the occupied territories. On the other hand, the Russian Federation needs these square meters to settle Russian residents there. It has long been known that people from central Russia are being actively brought to Mariupol in order to significantly change the ethnic composition of the population.

How is the territory integrated into Russia? The territory itself is a piece of land, the main importance is the population that lives there, who feel that they are the master of this land. Therefore, if you want to integrate the territory into the aggressor country, you need to change the ethnic composition of the people living there, – stressed Oleg Pendzyn.

Russians are brought in and textbooks are rewritten

On May 18, Ukraine recalled the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1944. At that time, Russians, who considered themselves the owners of these territories of Crimea, also visited their homes. Therefore, the peninsula was integrated into the Soviet Union as quickly as possible.

This practice took place in all territories occupied by the Russian regime. So there is nothing new in the current situation. People from continental Russia move into the empty apartments of Ukrainians, and at the same time, there is a significant change in school programs.

“Approaches to the education of children in the occupied territories are changing in order to turn them into cogs of the big Russian machine as quickly as possible. Therefore, today’s situation is completely understandable. The Russians are going to integrate these territories and do not want to return them under any circumstances,” the economist emphasized.