Going home – to occupation. What makes some Ukrainians return to Russian-occupied territories?

Nataliia is a pensioner from Mariupol. Her story is simple and entirely understandable. After the full-scale invasion, she decided that she didn’t want to live under occupation. So she left her home and her husband and went to stay with her daughter in Kyiv.

Nataliia had her own room at her daughter’s. She took care of her grandchildren, and she called her husband every day. He was a supporter of Russia, despite having been injured during the Russian invasion, and this was a source of disagreements between him and his wife. But nearly every day, he urged her to come back home. "The apartment’s still in one piece, you’ll find work, come back."

And life in Kyiv wasn’t that easy. Her pension didn’t go very far – she couldn’t help her daughter. The apartment was cramped. One day, Nataliia gave in to her husband’s pleas and returned to Mariupol.

Nataliia’s is one of millions of broken lives. Her story is told by Anna Murlykina, former editor-in-chief of the Mariupol website 0629.com.ua, in this interview with Ukrainska Pravda. The real name of the woman in the story has been changed for security reasons.

When Murlykina spoke to Nataliia after her return home, she sensed a deep sadness in her words – a sadness often found in people who don’t feel at home even in their own apartment and can’t find a place for themselves in their new environment. These are people who have lost their sense of home.

Murlykina had seen this longing before – in social media posts from people who were displaced from the occupied territories after 2014. But it wasn’t until the full-scale war, when she herself had to leave her native Mariupol, that she truly understood it.

"You are ripped out by the roots," she says now. "It’s very, very painful, and it makes a person helpless for a long time. Only the strongest can adapt, quickly find work, and create a new environment around them."

And this is one explanation for the phenomenon of Ukrainians returning to the occupied territories. But it’s not the only one.

At the end of last year, public discourse was rocked by a claim by Maksym Tkachenko, a Ukrainian MP from the Servant of the People party, that nearly 150,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) had returned to temporarily occupied territories. After facing criticism – led by Iryna Vereshchuk, Deputy Head of the President’s Office – the MP retracted his statement, saying it had been an "emotional assumption".

That assumption had one positive effect, however. Tkachenko had reminded the public, however briefly, of that section of society living on occupied land. Because if you search for mentions of these people in the Ukrainian media, it might seem as though they have disappeared along with control over the territory.

In reality, any attempt to count how many people have returned to Ukraine’s occupied east is unlikely to be objective. For example, a decrease in the number of IDPs in our country does not necessarily mean that these people have moved to the occupied territories; they may have moved abroad.

However, the debates over the numbers have overshadowed the main question: what drives some Ukrainians to return to the occupied lands?

Not return, but transit

During the three years of the full-scale war, the cost of housing in Ukraine’s newly occupied regions has not only not gone down – in some places, it has even gone up.

This startling revelation is where we begin our story about one of the most important reasons why some Ukrainians return to Russian-occupied territories.

"At first I couldn’t understand how this is even possible... Apartments in a semi-destroyed city cost the same now as they did before the invasion in a peaceful city with prospects," says Oleksii Artiukh, editor-in-chief of Tribune, a publication which has been covering events in Luhansk Oblast for 14 years.

So it’s no surprise that a significant number of Ukrainians go to the Russian-occupied regions temporarily – to sell their property.

This is not a return, it's transit.

With the money they receive, internally displaced persons hope to buy a property in the free part of Ukraine, or at least pay the deposit on a mortgage.

Sometimes their goal is not even to sell the property, but to register it according to Russian law, because otherwise, there's a big risk that your apartment will be "nationalised".

Property blackmail has become common practice in the occupied territories.

It’s simple: the occupation administrations publish lists of properties that "appear to be ownerless". The owners are asked to come to the local "administration's" housing management office within one or two months of publication, with their Russian passport and title documents to confirm their ownership.

They must turn up in person; no power of attorney for other people is accepted. If an owner doesn't show up within the specified time, the apartment or house is transferred into "municipal ownership".

"Imagine a five-storey building with about 20 apartments per section. There are cases where all 20 apartments in the section are on these lists. And in fact, this indirectly gives you an indication of how many people are left there," says Artiukh.

In this way, the Russians not only find housing for their own needs and keep track of the existing population, they also force Ukrainians to obtain Russian documents.

While Artiukh mostly monitors the situation in occupied Luhansk Oblast and Murlykina focuses on Donetsk Oblast, Serhii Danylov, deputy director of the Association for Middle East Studies, has focused his attention on Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts. He has been working with communities there since the occupation of Crimea.

"We have many testimonies from these oblasts where people leaving the occupation try to move someone into their homes or ask neighbours to turn the lights on," he says. "The local gauleiters [Russian-appointed puppet governors] have been instructed to keep track of who has left and which houses are empty."

Those who find their property on a list and set off to return home have to face the ordeal of Russian filtration.

Anna Murlykina tells the story of a 72-year-old woman from Mariupol who was crying down the phone to her. She had moved to Europe after the city was occupied. But life in an Italian hostel was stressful for the elderly lady, and she decided to return. She saved up until finally she had enough money for a ticket to Sheremetyevo [Moscow]. But she wasn't allowed to go any further than the airport. The security services checked her social media and found a photo of sunflowers and a blue sky and the words "Glory to Ukraine!"

The woman was put on the return flight. How her fate unfolded after that, Murlykina doesn't know. But there are thousands of Ukrainians who didn't get through filtration – a fact acknowledged by the Russians themselves.

"They say the issue of housing irritates the inspectors at the border control at Sheremetyevo," Murlykina recounts. "The carriers instruct people: when they ask you why you're travelling, say that you're visiting relatives. Never say you're going to reregister your property. One woman was told by an FSB officer: ‘Ah, you're going to sell our apartments.’"

Systematic replacement of the population

And there are plenty of potential buyers.

Part of the demand comes from "fire victims" – locals who lost their homes due to the fighting. Some of them managed to obtain compensation from Russia and are now trying to buy somewhere else to live so that they don’t have to leave their hometown.

But the main buyers are Russians. After all, Russia is carrying out systematic population replacement in the occupied Ukrainian land.

Russian propaganda paints idyllic pictures of large-scale reconstruction to attract its citizens to come and live in the newly occupied territories. And they come.

An estate agent in Mariupol told Murlykina that Russians began buying property in the city as early as 2022 because it was cheaper than in the southern Russian cities of Sochi or Krasnodar. Some have even bought apartments that were in ruins, expecting to receive compensation for their "lost" property in the future.

"There’s an influx of people from [Russia’s] Dagestan, Yakutia, the Far North – even from Siberia," says Danylov. "People are coming for the better climate. They say that those who arrived earlier bought at a lower price. In other words, they believe they’ve profited from this. They think they’re smarter and more cunning than everyone else who didn’t seize the moment."

Read more: Last stop: the front line. How and why Russia brings migrants to the occupied territories of Ukraine 

After the Russian security forces, their families arrive. Then utility workers come. Builders. Officials. Doctors and teachers. For many of them, the occupied regions offer a form of upward social mobility, with opportunities to make money or climb the career ladder.

Meanwhile, the locals are unwelcome guests in their own homeland: they are hired only with reluctance or are paid significantly less than incoming Russians.

It is impossible to determine how many Russians have settled in the occupied areas. However, according to locals’ observations reported by Ukrainska Pravda sources, they now make up at least 50% of the population. This means the area has already changed drastically.

In search of affordable housing and decent work

"When people return to the occupied territories, it is usually for three reasons," says Serhii Lyshenko, a member of Zaporizhzhia Oblast Council. "Family issues. The risk of losing property. And not being able to properly settle after they left the occupied area."

The two main problems for internally displaced persons are housing and employment.

When Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine caused mass internal migration, around 4,000 temporary accommodation centres were set up across the country – in schools, student accommodation, gymnasiums... At the time it seemed this would be short-term, and that people only needed a bed and a roof over their heads.

In September 2023, Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers passed a resolution on the functioning of temporary accommodation centres and the requirements they had to comply with. Oblast administrations then inspected the centres and closed down any that did not meet the new criteria.

Iryna Kalupakha, director of the department in the Human Rights Commissioner’s Secretariat that monitors the rights of people affected by the war, regularly visits temporary accommodation centres for IDPs with her colleagues.

"These are not places that can serve as permanent housing," she says, sharing her impressions from her visits. "The state needs to work towards reducing their number. People need an alternative that can be considered permanent housing."

On 29 January, the Ministry of Social Policy launched a pilot project to provide subsidies to IDPs for full or partial rent payments. On 6 February, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy instructed Finance Minister Serhii Marchenko and Deputy Prime Minister for Reconstruction Oleksii Kuleba to prepare a support programme for IDPs within two weeks. "This is the most pressing issue for millions of Ukrainian displaced persons – a home of their own. And our partners definitely have the resources to help with this," Zelenskyy said.

Two years ago, all displaced persons were eligible for monthly financial assistance from the state. Although it was only UAH 3,000 (about US$72) for children and people with disabilities and UAH 2,000 (about US$48) for others, when multiplied by the number of family members, this would partially cover rent costs. But in July 2023, this assistance was limited to socially vulnerable IDPs. In January this year, 1.2 million Ukrainians received these payments. The total number of IDPs in the country is 4.6 million.

"I spoke with a family where the father had stayed in the occupied territory while his daughter and two grandchildren moved to Kyiv," Murlykina recalls. "When she was receiving IDP aid, she had enough to pay the rent. Then the state withdrew that support, and now she is struggling to raise two school-age children. So her father, who works in the occupied territory and also receives a Russian pension, sends money to Kyiv.

Can you imagine? A person in the occupied territory is supporting his daughter because she can’t manage on her own! This is deeply shameful for the state."

The second problem for displaced persons is finding appropriate work.

At the moment, the government is willing to reimburse businesses UAH 8,000 (about US$122) per month for each IDP they employ. Last year, over 10,000 employers received such compensation. IDPs can also receive state assistance to retrain for a different profession if needed. But this is not enough to solve the employment issue.

For displaced persons, finding a job in a new place that offers the same standard of living as before is extremely difficult. This can be due to competition, the need to earn more to pay rent, and sometimes simply the lack of jobs matching their skills. For example, someone who worked in heavy industry in Donetsk Oblast might relocate to a city in western Ukraine where such enterprises do not exist.

"Imagine this: people can’t find work, and their living conditions are much worse than they were in the occupied territory," Lyshenko says. "And then they have people over there telling them: ‘Come back, your job is still available.’ And their home is still intact, which is better than living in temporary accommodation or a shelter. Will it actually be better there? That’s uncertain. But the struggle to settle in a new place and the loss of social connections push people to return to the occupied territories."

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Ukrainians who remain loyal to their country even under occupation are often saved by internal migration. Their principle is to minimise contact with the outside world. Danylov tells of families who live off subsistence farming and only leave their homes once a week to buy bread.

These people resist obtaining Russian passports for as long as possible. However, without this "document", they risk losing their homes, being denied medical care, and being cut off from social benefits. They are also more likely to come under the scrutiny of the FSB.

And after three months, they could be deported. According to a decree signed by Russian ruler Vladimir Putin at the end of 2024, "foreigners illegally residing in Russia"  must either "legalise" their stay by April 2025 or leave the country.

When such people decide to flee to free Ukrainian territory, they seek not only housing and jobs, but also moral support and dignified treatment from the state.

"The vast majority of people coming from the occupied areas arrive [in Ukraine – ed.] and burst into tears," says Danylov. "They kneel and kiss the ground, kiss the flag, kiss the border guards who welcome them.

And yet most of them immediately run into problems with the migration service and social services. These people did not have high expectations – they needed nothing from the state. But they do need documents. So they go to a state institution in Odesa or Kyiv and tell their story, and the response they get is: ‘So what?’

They expect respect for their traumatic experience of occupation. Some of them are outright heroes – they preserved Ukrainian identity, gathered intelligence for Ukrainian defence forces, and resisted taking Russian passports for as long as they could. And then they encounter the state and feel that all their efforts were for nothing."

Strangers in their hometown, they begin to feel unwanted in their homeland as well.

Rustem Khalilov, Ukrainska Pravda

Translation: Anna Kybukevych, Elina Beketova

Editing: Teresa Pearce