Since the beginning of the Russian war against Ukraine, the occupiers have been carrying out forced passportization in the captured territories. This scheme is not new: Russia often distributed its passports in places where it launched military operations. This was the case, for example, in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In 2014, this happened in occupied Crimea. However, the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People’s Republic" and "Luhansk People’s Republic" did not issue Russian passports until 2019. Then the Kremlin started issuing documents according to a simplified system.
Over the years, in Ukraine, the attitude to the Russian citizenship in the occupied territories has changed from non-acceptance (for example, at first Ukrainian border guards could deny entry to the mainland Ukraine if a person had a Russian passport) to the recognition of this process as forced. With the beginning of the full-scale invasion and the spread of the occupation to new regions of Ukraine, the debate about whether to accept Russian documents arose again at the state level.
People in the occupied territories also face this dilemma. Some of them delay obtaining a Russian passport until the last moment. The occupation authorities use threats to force Ukrainians to get Russian documents. Suspilne tells what awaits those who refuse to receive Russian documents.
"Take a passport. Survive. Wait until the territory is liberated"
"Your mother and I can be witnesses in The Hague [International Criminal Court]," Mykola (the name has been changed for security reasons) used to say in conversations with his daughter. When Russia started the war in Ukraine in 2014, the man and his wife Valentyna (the name has been changed) found themselves in the epicenter of hostilities. The retired couple lived in Donetsk region, their city was under occupation, so they saw the crimes of the Russians with their own eyes.
However, with the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the conversations about The Hague stopped: the news about the shelling of neighboring regions and the constantly growing number of victims undermined Mykola’s health. In early June, he told his daughter over the phone, "I do not have enough strength anymore. I am giving up." He died in a few weeks.
In the previous article, I wrote what it is like to die in the occupation, using the example of my own parents. However, they died in six and eight years after the annexation of Crimea, so they already had Russian documents: a passport, an individual insurance number, a pension certificate, a health insurance contract, etc. The occupiers considered them to be Russian citizens, so there were no problems with burials.
Valentyna, on the other hand, was in a more difficult situation: during the previous years of the war, she and Mykola refused to receive any documents from the occupiers — neither "Donetsk People’s Republic" passports, nor Russian passports. In 2020, before the Kremlin declared occupied Donetsk region part of Russia, the woman was brought to the hospital with COVID and the doctors did not care that she had a Ukrainian passport.
However, in 2022, the Russians began to distribute their passports in the occupied territories of Donbas. Later, they began to do this in the regions captured during the full-scale invasion.
This process was accompanied by contradictory statements of Ukrainian officials. On the one hand, Iryna Vereshchuk, the then Minister for Reintegration of the Temporary Occupied Territories, stressed, "Don’t take a Russian passport. I know it may not be easy, but in the long run, Russian citizenship will create more problems than benefits for you." On the other hand, Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets noted, "We realize that this [passportization] takes place under physical pressure. Therefore, take a passport, survive, wait until the territory is liberated."
However, Valentyna managed to receive the death certificate. In June 2022, she applied to the local authorities for her husband’s death certificate, and her request was granted, although she was asked to show her Russian passport. "I do not have it," she answered. "I do not care what kind of death certificate it will be, just give it to me." She got the certificate, but the fact of death in the occupied territory must still be confirmed in accordance with the Ukrainian legislation. The Ministry of Social Policy explained this procedure in more detail at the beginning of the war.
Because of the full-scale invasion, none of Valentyna’s children and grandchildren could come to Mykola’s funeral.
"If you get sick, you will not be admitted to the hospital, you will die at home"
Valentyna refused to accept a Russian passport one more year.
In 2023, she even managed to leave the occupied territory to visit her daughter. The daughter recalls that at the Ukrainian checkpoint, Valentyna cited Taras Shevchenko’s poems. She wanted to demonstrate to the border guards that her Ukrainian position had not been shaken by the years of living in the territory captured by the Russians.
Valentyna’s daughter hoped that her mother would not return to the occupied territory. However, in a month, the woman went back. "[The occupiers] are taking away houses there," she explained. During the month of her absence, Valentyna’s neighbor was coming to her house to turn on the light, simulating the presence of people inside.
Valentyna’s fear was not ungrounded. Her other neighbor returned to the hometown after several months of absence and met Russian soldiers at the door of her house. One of them even brought his family there and refused to let the woman in. She stayed with a friend and in the next three weeks applied to all authorities, even to the "head of the “Donetsk People’s Republic" Denys Pushylin, trying to get the house back. In the end, she succeeded, but everything that had at least minimal value disappeared from the house along with the uninvited guests.
At the beginning of 2023, the passportization in Donetsk region was in full swing. During a visit to the local branch of the Pension Fund, Valentyna faced threats addressed to her, "If you do not get a Russian passport, you will be deprived of your bank deposits and all payments, you will have neither a pension nor social assistance. And most importantly, if you get sick, you will not be admitted to the hospital, you will die at home." Even then, the woman hesitated, but her daughter said, "Take it." Thus, in the tenth year of the war, Valentyna was forced to take Russian citizenship.
All these years she had been receiving a Ukrainian pension. Before the COVID pandemic, there was so-called "pension tourism" in the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Once every few months pensioners went to the towns of Bakhmut or Shchastia, then not occupied by Russia, to withdraw funds from Ukrainian bank cards.
"Even staunch separatists made such trips," says Valentyna’s daughter. "Even people with black souls still received Ukrainian pensions."
There were no pensions in Donetsk and Luhansk "People’s Republics" before the full-scale invasion. The occupation authorities paid once a month “social assistance”, about 4 thousand rubles (at the rate of 2014, about 2 thousand hryvnias). Passports of the self-proclaimed republics were not required to receive the "assistance".
The pension tourism was put on a forced pause with the start of the COVID pandemic. Then the occupation authorities closed the crossing points to the Ukraine-controlled territory. In 2024, Kyiv stopped payments to some residents of the occupied territories.
"My mother burst into tears when she received a call from the Pension Fund"
On July 1, 2023, the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine began identifying pensioners who received the status of internally displaced persons before the start of the full-scale invasion. The process lasted until March 31, 2024. However, it was possible to undergo identification even after the specified deadline. This is what Valentyna did, but this procedure was not simple for her.
The woman could not come and confirm her identity at the branch of the Pension Fund of Ukraine in the Kyiv-controlled territory. The video conference option was a real challenge for a 70-year-old woman: she needed to install a VPN, to download a messenger, to schedule a call, and finally to connect via video... Her friend helped her. Before the call, she put all the documents on the table: the Ukrainian passport, pension certificate, taxpayer’s card. However, when an employee of the Pension Fund appeared on the screen, Valentyna burst into tears. She said that she did not have the strength to endure the occupation, that life under the control of the Russians was driving her into depression.
In the end, at the beginning of September 2024, the woman got the Ukrainian pension for the almost six-month break, 2823 hryvnias 33 kopecks per month. The occupation authorities, since Valentyna already has a Russian passport, are paying her a pension of 12,700 rubles (according to the current rate of the National Bank of Ukraine, this is a little more than 5,500 hryvnias).
Valentyna’s daughter says that it is impossible to live on this money in the occupied territory, "The prices are like in Moscow." The access to the Ukrainian pension could be a good bonus, but it is impossible to exchange hryvnias for rubles at the official exchange rate in the Ukraine-controlled territory because this is prohibited by the National Bank of Ukraine resolution.
In the occupied territories, the unofficial exchange of hryvnias for rubles takes place at an undervalued rate. At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, 4 rubles were given for 1 hryvnia, now the exchange rate is 1:1. The exchange can be done, in particular, through the unofficial system of the so-called "cash transfer": a person who has access to the Ukrainian online banking accepts a hryvnia transfer to his/her account, and sends the amount in rubles from a Russian bank card. In addition to the unfavorable exchange rate, this scheme also includes a commission percentage.
Oksana from Chernihiv (the name has been changed), whose retired parents are in the occupied territory of Zaporizhzhia region, also uses "cash transfer". "Several times I have been subject to a financial check," says the woman. "I wanted to make a transfer, but the bank called me and asked to give the phone to the owner of the bank account. Of course, I could not do that, because the owner is in the occupied territory. Then the bank blocked my access."
In order to solve this problem, Oksana’s parents had to install Zoom, "My dad learned how to use it. He can use these technologies a little, but my mother cannot," says the woman.
"Take 100 dollars and buy medicines"
Currently, Oksana’s parents and Valentyna live with the financial support from their children.
When they last met, Valentyna’s daughter gave her the dollars saved for a rainy day. Valentyna has health problems; she can no longer work. So her daughter told her, "When you are short of money, take 100 dollars, exchange and buy medicines, products, and anything else you need."
Each day, Valentyna’s daughter hopes that her mother will make a decision to leave the occupied territory, but she has not decided yet.
"By the way, there are normal people there [in the territory of occupied Donetsk region]. Of course, there are scoundrels, separatists, but there are many people who have the same standpoint as my mother," she says.
Oksana’s parents refused to take Russian passports until recently, but the woman calls this decision "a matter of life and death". Without a document, one cannot get any administrative services, and medical care is not provided even if money is offered to doctors.
"When my mother addressed the police because of a rowdy neighbor, they first did not want to accept her statement," she says. "People can be brought "to the basement" [torture chamber] without any reason, not to mention the absence of a passport. Father often goes to the summer house to feed animals, so he needs documents [to avoid risks]."
During the two and a half years of occupation, Oksana’s parents have never received a Russian pension, although payments began to arrive to the townspeople almost immediately. The woman assumes that the occupiers gained access to the documents of the local branch of the Pension Fund of Ukraine and make payments according to the Ukrainian pension registers. However, her parents have not been paid at all.
"Neither mother nor father have not yet applied for it [Russian pension]," she adds.