❗ On September 30, putin signed the “agreements on the inclusion” of the new occupied territories into the russian federation. The head of the kremlin said that Donetsk region, Kherson region, Luhansk region and Zaporizhzhya region are now “russian territories” and their status is not being discussed.
🔎 Having announced the “accession” of Ukrainian regions to russia, the russian authorities counted on the “Crimean version” of the development of events, but faced a number of such problems that endanger the statehood of russia itself.
✅ Predictably, the annexation was not recognized by any country in the world, representatives of international organizations stated that this procedure was organized under conditions of military occupation and cannot have any legal consequences. The General Assembly of the United Nations considers the so-called inclusion of the temporarily occupied territories of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions into the russian federation incompatible with the principles of the UN Charter and as violating the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine.
✅ Even a month after the annexation, the kremlin cannot provide an official map of the “new borders of the russian federation”. The russian Center of Geodesy and Cartography responded to media inquiries that “the borders have not been finalized.” And it’s not surprising – after declaring both occupied and non-controlled areas as russian territory, russian state borders turned into a conditional category, the legitimacy of which is not recognized by any civilized country. After all, instead of an imaginary border, there is currently a front line that is dynamically changing, and not in favor of the russian federation. In fact, the real state and customs border of the russian federation with Ukraine de facto remains in its former place.
✅ The question of the creation of a new federal district remains suspended – reports appeared in the mass media about the unification of new territories into one Crimean Federal District, and about joining the Southern Federal District, which includes Crimea. Moreover, the occupiers did not even invent any intermediate status for the partially occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and two districts of Mykolaiv region. The interests of various clans of putin’s elite are obviously behind this, so we should not wait for a quick solution here.
✅ In the annexed territories, predictable administrative chaos has arisen – quasi-structures of various composition and different levels of governance exist here at the same time – military power, “military-civilian administrations”, state apparatuses of “people’s republics”…
It is formally managed by “local” cadres from among the field commanders of the “militia”, local politicians from the Party of Regions and the Communist Party of Ukraine, as well as Ukrainian security forces who have defected to the separatists. Over the course of 8 years, mafia-type cells were formed from the “local” groups, which continue to wish to remain as independent as possible from the russian curators. In order to divide and take control of the local elite, the kremlin is trying to saturate it with russian personnel. Thus, in the “DPR” the head of the “republic” is the veteran of the “russian spring” d.pushylin, and the government is managed by the russian official v.khotsenko. The schedule is similar in the “LPR”: the head of the “republic” is a former personnel officer of the SCU l.pasichnyk, the government is headed by field commander s.kozlov in 2014-2015 (the first vice-premier under him is the former vice-governor of the Kurgan region v. kuznetsov).
In the occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions, there is a significant lack of local personnel, corrupt structures of “local” power are only being formed under the leadership of former people’s deputies from the party of the regions of v.saldo (Kherson) and ye.balytskyi (Zaporizhzhya). Therefore, the actual power of both annexed regions is concentrated in the hands of russian heads of “governments”: in Kherson region – former vice-governor of Kaliningrad region s.yeliseev, in Zaporizhzhya – ex-head of government of Vologda region a.koltsov.
The business qualities of the newly appointed russian “gauleiters” are under great question, because sending them to the occupied territories becomes a kind of punishment for their guilt before putin. Regular attacks on occupation officials do not increase those who wish to occupy these posts.
Thus, the former official of the ministry of emergency situations of the russian federation, colonel a.katerynychev, after being accused of involvement in the death of the head of the department ye.zinichev, was dismissed and again “surfaced” as the first deputy of the occupation administration of the Kherson region, and on September 30, 2022, he died as a result of shelling from the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Another example is the “commandant” of Energodar in the Zaporizhzhya region, o.molokov, the former head of the housing and communal services department in Alushta, sentenced in 2019 to 4 years for bribery.
✅ The process of administrative assimilation of the local population through active passporting is progressing with difficulty. Local authorities force residents to urgently obtain russian documents, threatening otherwise with the deprivation of social assistance, the impossibility of getting a job or doing business. However, the occupation authorities are not satisfied with the pace of passporting, especially in the territories of Luhansk and Donetsk regions occupied this year. In the territories of Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions, a significant part of the population is openly hostile, and even pro-russian residents
they are in no hurry to obtain russian citizenship, as the region may be liberated by the Armed Forces of Ukraine at any moment. By the way, since the transition of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to the counteroffensive, the active issuance of passports on the territory of Donbas has been suspended, according to official data, “for technical reasons.”
And most importantly, passports issued in the occupied territories are not recognized either in Ukraine or in Europe.
✅ Attempts of the occupation administration to “brainwash” the residents and convince them of “the absence of an alternative to russia” are proving to be futile. Local journalists en masse refused to cooperate with the occupiers, despite offers of high salaries and threats. Most of the media workers left for the free territory. Peaceful resistance and sabotage of the actions of the occupiers and collaborators on the part of the active part of society is intensifying.
✅ The realities and conditions in which residents of the occupied territories live every day. There are no courts in the temporarily occupied territory, and laws do not apply. Those who left the places of illegal detention tell about numerous tortures, mockery, humiliation, violence, including of a sexual nature. Official Telegram channels and russian mass media report almost every day about the detention of “Ukrainian terrorists,” the exposure of “agency networks,” and “terrorist groups.” Deputies, heads of communal institutions and enterprises, entrepreneurs, volunteers, and ordinary citizens turn out to be terrorists. Where the active phase of hostilities took place, there is still no electricity, gas, water supply and sewage.
✅ The “martial law” declared on the territory of the four regions occupied by russia only increases the absurdity of the situation. After all, this is only a reason for the total looting of the occupied territories after the so-called population evacuation.
❗Any attempts by russia to change the legal status of its temporarily occupied territories in Ukraine, including the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhya regions, as well as Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, through occupation, are doomed to failure.
