(EASTERN UKRAINE AND SOUTHERN UKRAINE) – Russia is systematically seizing tens of thousands of private homes across the illegally annexed regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as part of a state sanctioned strategy of “Russification,” a BBC investigation has found.
Documents analysed by BBC Verify over six months reveal that Moscow installed occupation authorities have identified more than 34,000 properties for confiscation or have already seized them. The properties are then redistributed exclusively to Russian passport holders.
The scheme operates by declaring homes whose owners have fled the fighting as “ownerless.” The properties are then transferred to occupation authorities for redistribution to Russian citizens. This practice was formalised into law by the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in late December last year, creating what the Kremlin calls a “legal framework for integrating the reunited regions” into the Russian system.
Critics and experts describe the programme as “demographic engineering,” a deliberate attempt to permanently alter the social and political fabric of the occupied territories to make their future reintegration with Ukraine exceedingly difficult. They say it is also designed to project an image of permanence to the domestic Russian population.
Olga Robinson of BBC Verify detailed the human cost of this policy, recounting the story of a young woman from Mariupol, given the pseudonym Ivana. Her father built a family home just outside the city for her mother after she was diagnosed with cancer, hoping the fresh air would help. The mother passed away soon after construction was completed.
The grandparents, who remained in the home, were visited by occupation officials this April and informed the house was identified for seizure. The legal owner, the father, had fled Ukraine. Despite the grandparents holding Russian passports, they have no ownership rights and now face eviction.
“It’s not the very fact that they’re just losing physical property that she finds really disturbing. It’s the fact that it’s their memories as well. It’s all going. It’s the place where their mother lived,” Ms. Robinson reported, noting that Ivana seemed resigned to the loss.
Moscow defended the scheme, claiming it manages properties whose owners cannot be identified or contacted, while providing a mechanism for compensation. However, all legislation reviewed by the BBC stipulates that only Russian passport holders are eligible to claim any compensation. International law experts have raised serious questions about the entire scheme’s legality.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has stated Ukraine will not accept any peace deal that cedes territory to Russia. For many Ukrainians, the loss of their homes is final. A pastor from Melitopol, whose property is currently going through the seizure process, told the BBC that when a lodger contacted him to say officials were asking about property rights, “I just felt that it’s just a matter of time until they take it away.”
Ms. Robinson, who herself grew up in a mixed Russian-Ukrainian household, reflected on the long-term damage of the invasion. “A lot of my friends and people I know back in Ukraine, they just have on multiple occasions told me that I just can’t see how I can ever forgive Russians for what they’ve done,” she said, adding that repercussions from the war would likely be felt for decades.
(The BBC investigation was based on official documents published by Moscow-installed authorities. The report features analysis by Olga Robinson of BBC Verify.)
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