On March 18, 2014, at 04:00 p.m. in the St. George’s Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace, russian President vladimir putin, Prime Minister of the self-proclaimed Republic of Crimea Sergey Aksyonov, Chairman of the newly created “State Council” of the self-proclaimed Republic of Crimea Vladimir Konstantinov, and a representative of the separatist leadership of Sevastopol, a russian citizen Alexei Chaly, signed the so-called “Agreement on the Accession of Crimea to Russia.”
I remember talking to my friends from Donetsk in 2018. They told me that a lot of Russians had appeared in the city. No, not the military – that would not be surprising. It was civilians. They “buy up” empty apartments and move in. At first, I was quite skeptical about this – from whom can you buy there and what can you buy? IN THE “DNR”? But then I came across similar information somewhere else. I decided to find out more.
Emigrants from Uriupynsk
It turned out that there were at least 10,000 such “emigrants” in Donetsk alone. This is according to unconfirmed data from the Information Resistance group. It can be argued that there are actually more of them. Who are these people? Mostly “militias” and marginalized people from Russia who came here to “fight the fascists”. Then they decided to settle down. Nobody knows how many of them there are. The “DNR authorities” give or sell them “empty” apartments. These are the homes of those Ukrainians who fled the war. And then there is the “LNR”. The picture there is the same: “liberators” move into “liberated” apartments.
As for Crimea, the situation is even worse: in the first 4 years alone, 160 to 270 thousand Russians moved to the peninsula because of the theft. According to the Russian version of Wikipedia, the population of Crimea at the beginning of 2018 was 2,350,452 people. This means that about 10 percent of the residents are purely “newcomers” ethnic Russians. They come from everywhere, “buy” cheap housing by Russian standards. And what – Crimea is “ours”.
The most disgusting thing is that all this “resettlement of peoples” is encouraged by the Russian authorities. It is deliberate.
Buyers of stolen goods and planned genocide
Let’s leave aside the moral side of the matter – what kind of morality can we talk about in relation to buyers of stolen goods? And the fact that the new residents of Donbas and Crimea are buying stolen apartments is something that only the last fool does not understand. Let’s try to think about something else: why Russia is doing this and what we should do.
The Kremlin is doing this quite deliberately. As it was after the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1944, when their homes were inhabited by Russians. And when the Tatars returned home, it suddenly turned out that they didn’t have that house anymore, because some Russian Vanya was already living in it. The result was social tension and interethnic conflicts. And a huge problem for the Ukrainian government, which had to deal with all this. Note in parentheses that it has not solved it. Unfortunately.
This will happen now as well-Moscow is cowardly and cynically relocating its citizens to other people’s homes so that it can shout loudly about “genocide” after the liberation of Crimea. And, importantly, to have a powerful “fifth column” that can be easily manipulated. Because these buyers of stolen goods consider what they have acquired to be theirs. Actually, this is nothing new – the scenario is repeating itself. The same thing will happen in Donbas.
The family will always abandon you, son
What should Ukraine do? It has to take back what is itss! Because from all points of view – moral and legal – the actions of the Russians are insignificant. No one will ever recognize the civil law acts of sale and purchase of this property as valid. The “owners” will have to be thrown out of those homes after they are released. And it may even cost money to deport them to their Uryupinsk.
But that will be after the release. And there will be another cry to the whole world about “fascists and Banderites.” But no one will be interested in that anymore. Well, I can only quote Arkady Babchenko once again: “The family will always abandon you, son.” This is exactly what awaits the newest residents of Crimea and Donbas. I wonder if the Kremlin will be as enthusiastic about settling them back into apartments already occupied by new owners in some Kondopoga?
P.S. As of the beginning of 2023, the population of Crimea, according to the Russian Wikipedia (“according to Rosstat”), is 2,471,950 people.
Mykola Satpaev, “Ukrainsky Interes”
Tags: occupied crimea russia ukraine war
