Ukrainians in Russian-Occupied Areas Struggle with Basic Needs, Fear

Nearly four years after Russia's invasion began, millions of Ukrainians living under Moscow's control face severe shortages of water, heat, and housing. Residents also live in constant fear of persecution for suspected loyalty to Ukraine, with thousands detained in secret facilities.

TALLINN, Estonia — As Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine approaches its fourth year, Moscow maintains control over approximately one-fifth of Ukrainian land. Between 3 million and 5 million people still living in these occupied territories struggle with basic necessities including shelter, water, electricity, heating, and medical services.

Even Russian President Vladimir Putin has admitted to “many truly pressing, urgent problems” existing in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions that Moscow illegally claimed as its own following the February 24, 2022 invasion.

Authorities impose Russian citizenship, language and cultural practices on local populations, transforming educational curricula and academic materials to reflect Moscow’s agenda.

Residents live with constant anxiety about being labeled as Ukrainian sympathizers, say those who managed to escape. Human rights advocates report widespread imprisonment, physical violence and killings of civilians.

According to Oleksandra Matviichuk, who leads the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Center for Civil Liberties, Russia has created a “vast network of secret and official detention centers where tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians” remain locked up indefinitely without formal charges.

Moscow has declined to address previous accusations from United Nations human rights officials regarding the torture of civilians and captured soldiers.

Inna Vnukova recalls spending the initial period of Russian control in the Luhansk area concealed in a wet basement with her relatives. In her community of Kudriashivka, military personnel intimidated locals, established roadblocks and stole from houses while artillery bombardments continued.

“Everyone was very scared and afraid to go outside,” Vnukova shared with The Associated Press from Estonia, where she currently resides. The forces specifically targeted government workers and public employees like herself and her spouse, Oleksii Vnukov.

During mid-March 2022, she departed the community with her teenage son Zhenya and her brother’s household, despite having to temporarily abandon her husband. They took a dangerous car journey to nearby Starobilsk, displaying a white cloth while mortar rounds exploded around them.

Oleksii Vnukov, who worked in court security, remained almost two additional weeks. Russian troops threatened his life twice before he managed to flee.

“The people there aren’t living, they’re just surviving,” he described regarding the 150 residents — including the family’s elderly parents — who continue living in the community that previously housed 800 people.

The Vnukovs have established themselves in Estonia, where she operates printing equipment and he works as an electrical technician. Their son has reached age 20, and they now have a one-year-old daughter named Alisa.

Russian military units surrounded Mariupol for weeks before capturing the coastal city in May 2022. The destruction of the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theater on March 16 that year resulted in nearly 600 deaths in and surrounding the structure, according to an Associated Press investigation — representing the conflict’s most devastating single assault on non-combatants.

While most of the approximately half-million residents evacuated, many remained hidden in underground spaces, according to a former theater performer who sheltered for months with his parents.

The former performer, currently in Estonia, requested anonymity to protect his 76-year-old parents who remain in Mariupol. They accepted Russian documentation to access healthcare and received a one-time payment equivalent to $1,300 each as reimbursement for their demolished residence, he explained.

Housing shortages persist despite the population dropping to roughly half its pre-war size. New residential units are marketed to incoming Russians rather than displaced locals, based on video complaints sent to Putin.

Not all residents reject Russian control. The former performer estimates half his previous theater colleagues support the Kremlin. Nevertheless, he noted his parents requested he avoid sending Ukrainian-language postcards because “it could be dangerous.”

Extended warfare and abandonment have left numerous cities with deteriorating public infrastructure.

In Alchevsk, a Luhansk region municipality, more than half the residences lack heating during this harsh winter season. Officials have established five warming centers.

Throughout the Donetsk area, water delivery trucks fill containers outside residential buildings — though they freeze completely in winter, explained a resident who requested anonymity due to safety concerns. “There’s constant squabbling over water,” she noted.

Moscow incentivizes Russian migration to occupied areas through various benefits. Educational staff, medical professionals and cultural employees receive salary bonuses for five-year commitments in these regions.

The northeastern municipality of Sievierodonetsk, previously home to 140,000 residents, sustained extensive destruction and currently houses only 45,000 primarily elderly or disabled people. A single ambulance team serves the entire city, while Russian healthcare workers rotate through its hospital, said a 67-year-old former engineer who spoke anonymously fearing retaliation.

“I know how difficult it is now for the residents of the liberated cities and towns. There are many truly pressing, urgent problems,” Putin stated in September. He mentioned requirements for dependable water systems and healthcare access, announcing a “large-scale socioeconomic development program” for these areas.

Stanislav Shkuta, 25, from Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson area, described barely avoiding detention multiple times before reaching Ukrainian-controlled land in 2023. He remembered traveling on a bus stopped by Russian soldiers, where “men and women were asked to strip to the waist to see if they had Ukrainian tattoos.”

Shkuta, now residing in Estonia, recalled he “turned white with fear, wondering if I’d cleared everything on my phone.”

Contacts remaining in Nova Kakhovka report deteriorating conditions, with suspected Ukrainian supporters detained on streets or during unexpected home searches, he added.

Mykhailo Savva from Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties stated “Russian special services continue to identify disloyal Ukrainians, extract confessions, and continue to detain people,” with locals subjected to identification verification and mass inspections.

Human rights organizations report Russia operated “filtration camps” during the war’s early phase to identify potentially disloyal individuals, along with anyone employed by the government, who assisted Ukrainian forces or had military relatives, plus journalists, educators, researchers and political figures.

Approximately 16,000 civilians face illegal detention, though actual numbers could be significantly higher since many are held without communication access, according to Ukrainian Human Rights Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets.