Kremlin Using Passportization to Russify Ukraine’s Occupied Territories 

Kremlin Using Passportization to Russify Ukraine’s Occupied Territories 

Executive Summary:

• On September 10, 2025, the Kremlin finalized its forced passportization campaign—the mass, fast-track naturalization of a territory’s population by distributing passports—in the occupied territories of Ukraine to “settle their legal status” under Russian law.
• The Russian occupation authorities have expanded coercive passportization measures, linking access to basic services and property rights to Russian citizenship and launching administrative expulsions of Ukrainians who refuse to obtain Russian passports. 
• The Kremlin is expelling Ukrainians who do not accept Russian rule to erase the remaining Ukrainian civic presence and reshape the demographic composition of the occupied territories of Ukraine.

On January 20, new exit and entry regulations from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs came into force, removing birth certificates from the list of valid travel documents for children under the age of 14 in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine (Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, November 7, 2025; The Federal Security Service Border Service, accessed January 22). As a result, minors in territories under the Kremlin’s control, including Crimea and other occupied parts of Ukraine, may legally cross borders only if they hold Russian passport documentation. While the rules are formally document-based rather than destination-specific, they eliminate the last non-passport exit option for Ukrainian children under Russian occupation. These measures operationalize amendments adopted earlier in July 2025, when the Kremlin introduced Federal Law No. 257-FZ (President of Russia, July 23, 2025). These changes extend forced passportization to Ukrainian children, further restricting civilian mobility and tightening the Kremlin’s administrative grip over the occupied territories of Ukraine.

On September 10, 2025, the Kremlin formally concluded its forced passportization campaign—the mass, fast-track naturalization of a territory’s population by distributing passports—in the occupied Ukrainian territories. In March 2025, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that all residents of the occupied regions would be required to become passport-holding citizens of Russia to “settle their legal status” (Meduza, October 22, 2025). Ukrainians who do not have a Russian passport face deportation and loss of access to essential services. Residents of the occupied territories who did not obtain a Russian passport through the expedited system in place before September 2025 now face a long-term application process that can take several years (Suspilne, September 13, 2025).

Russian officials claim that full passportization was concluded much earlier. In January 2025, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs stated that passport issuance for residents of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics and the occupied parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts was fully completed in December 2024 (TASS, January 31, 2025). In March 2025, Russian Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Kolokoltsev announced that 3.5 million Russian passports had been issued to Ukrainians since 2022 (Interfax, March 5, 2025). Residents from across the occupied territories of Ukraine, however, recount continued forced passportization throughout 2025. Ukrainians continue to face systematic pressure, threats, and administrative blockades designed to force them into applying for Russian citizenship (Freedom, May 23, 2025).

The Kremlin has methodically made passportization a tool of administrative control by linking all essential services to accepting Russian citizenship. The absence of a Russian passport excludes Ukrainians from accessing pensions, obtaining employment, receiving social benefits, or pursuing their studies (Freedom, May 23, 2025; Meduza, October 22, 2025). The Kremlin even made phone communication impossible for Ukrainians without Russian citizenship, as SIM cards from local operators now require Russian identification (TASS, February 27, 2025). Russian occupation authorities in the occupied Luhansk and Donetsk regions made mobile phone access entirely dependent on Russian passport information, and anyone who failed to present a Russian passport by the end of November 2025 had their mobile service cut off in December 2025 (ACMC, November 1, 2025; SUD, November 19, 2025). Russian occupation authorities urged residents to use an online platform for Russian citizenship registration, even though many areas lack stable internet access, forcing elderly people and thousands of others to stand in long lines at service centers (ACMC, November 1, 2025). In October 2025, Russian occupation authorities banned the sale and use of satellite television equipment capable of receiving Ukrainian and international media channels (Korrespondent, November 19, 2025).

Ukrainians cannot receive medical assistance without Russian papers (Espresso, March 4, 2025). There is evidence that the occupation authorities have denied prescriptions for essential medicines to seriously ill patients without Russian passports, demonstrating how the Kremlin uses access to healthcare as a coercive mechanism (Kyiv Post, November 3, 2025). Ukrainian parents have also faced difficulties enrolling their children in schools without Russian passports (Freedom, May 23, 2025). 

Many Ukrainians under occupation decide to obtain a Russian passport as a means of survival rather than as an expression of allegiance to the Kremlin (NV.UA, October 23, 2025). Ukrainians who left the occupied territories and were interviewed by UN representatives noted that they obtained Russian citizenship out of necessity (Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, July 24, 2025). Many of them described the decision to get a Russian passport as a matter of life and death, often taken only after threats or the loss of income (Suspilne, September  20, 2024).

The Kremlin has tied Russian citizenship to property rights in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Residents must re-register their properties with the local Russian authorities and declare their property rights in compliance with Russian legislation, which requires a Russian passport (NP.Resilience, September 5, 2024; Podrobnosti, January 9, 2025). Those of them who fail to do so risk having properties classified as abandoned or unregistered, paving the way for confiscation. The occupation authorities are also threatening to take away housing from Ukrainians who do not hold Russian passports if they owe money for utilities (LB, August 10, 2024). In October 2025, the Russian government formally legalized such property confiscations, allowing local proxies to redistribute property to imported Russian teachers, police, and bureaucrats (RBC-Ukraine, October 23, 2025).

Russian occupation authorities had already started tightening migration and documentation checks across occupied territories even before the formal September 2025 deadline (Current Time, February 13). Since early February 2025, Ukrainians without Russian passports have been subjected to increased passport checks and restrictions on their freedom of movement. After the official conclusion of the passportization campaign in September 2025, these measures escalated into administrative expulsions. In the occupied territories of Luhansk oblast, for instance, Ukrainians who failed to “settle their legal status” started receiving administrative removal orders, with documented cases of forced expulsions and hundreds of formal decisions to deport those without Russian passports (Censor.net, October 9, 2025; V-Variant, November 2, 2025). These expulsions demonstrate the Kremlin’s deliberate effort to expunge any remaining Ukrainian civilian presence across the occupied territories. These steps are consistent with emerging reports that Russia is preparing to relocate selected residents from occupied territories to Siberia under the pretext of development programs (NV.UA, November 13, 2025). Moscow has circulated instructions across local occupation authorities, schools, and communal enterprises to identify Ukrainian workers for long-term deployments to remote regions of Siberia. This move is an example of the Kremlin’s broader removal of Ukrainians from their communities, reminiscent of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s deportation of Crimean Tatars to the remote regions of Siberia and Central Asia.

Russian media and schools inside the occupied territories of Ukraine are pushing narratives of belonging to the “Russian world,” reinforcing loyalty via repetition and fear of exclusion (Zmina, February 18, 2024). Combining administrative enforcement with ideological conditioning, the Kremlin yields obedience more efficiently than by force alone.

The Kremlin’s passportization strategy aims to coercively integrate Ukrainians under occupation into the Russian legal and administrative systems. By linking essential services such as healthcare, pensions, and education to Russian citizenship, the Kremlin seeks to turn occupied residents into obedient subjects. Moscow’s ultimate objective is to force pro-Russian allegiance and erase any traces of Ukrainian identity. Ukrainians who resist these efforts are receiving administrative removal orders and forced expulsions. Unless challenged, the Kremlin’s coercive system will continue to normalize demographic manipulation as a tool of territorial consolidation and coercive statecraft.