Russia's Colonization of Crimea: Resettlement and Future Deportations

Since 2014, Russia has resettled about a million of its citizens to Crimea.

According to Olga Kuryshko, the Permanent Representative of the President in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , the policy of replacing Ukrainian citizens with Russian ones is one of the ways to colonize Ukrainian Crimea. Russians from the hinterland are lured with benefits, such as positions, housing, or cheap mortgages and land allocation, for example, for the so-called "svo" participants. According to Kuryshko, these are people who live permanently, come periodically, or have been in Crimea for a certain period and left the peninsula.

"From the very beginning of the occupation, it was a question of holding certain positions in law enforcement and the judiciary. That is, the system that was supposed to ensure the establishment of a strict regime on this territory. They did this by providing preferential housing, higher salaries, other preferences and the opportunity to transport their families to this territory. This is the first stage. The second stage is the issue of medical care or teachers," said Kuryshko.

In addition, she added, the occupiers introduced their own programs in the field of education and turned Crimean universities into branches of Russian ones.

"This meant that if, for example, a child from the occupied territory of Crimea studied in an educational institution, then they were given preferential conditions for entering Russian educational institutions. And this contributes to the leaching of these young people from the territory of occupied Crimea. In return, Russian citizens had preferential conditions for entering Crimean universities," Kuryshko explained.

In the future, she noted, Russians who moved to Crimea after 2014 will face deportation. However, Ukraine will not deport everyone at once, as it is a democratic country. In addition, there are controversial issues, in particular, during the occupation, many mixed families with children were born.

"Children born on the territory of the occupied Crimea to parents who are citizens of Ukraine, or one of the parents is a citizen of Ukraine, are considered citizens of Ukraine. This is a general rule defined in the legislation, it is not an individual approach for the temporarily occupied territory," emphasized the Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the AR of Crimea.

She pointed out that courts will most likely consider each case of expulsion of Russian citizens from the peninsula individually.

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