Flanked by minefields, with the deadly percussion of shelling in the background, we made our way cautiously into recently liberated Kherson.
This was November 2022, in the southeastern corner of Ukraine, where Ukrainian forces had launched a successful counteroffensive against Russia to reclaim land lost in Moscow’s full-scale invasion. At the time, it was the latest in a string of stunning wins by the Ukrainians, who, against the odds, were pushing Russia back.
Like other recently liberated cities, dazed residents emerged from their homes for the first time in months—with the same stories of disappearances, detentions, torture, and death.
Leering down on them were the dystopian billboards of happy faces promoting Russia’s so-called referendum to annex Kherson and three other recently occupied regions of Ukraine.
For years, I have tracked Russia’s bloody actions inside occupied territory. The referendums, denounced globally as coercive and a sham, were just part of a concerted effort to quickly and thoroughly “Russify” occupied territory: An action Ukrainian officials believe is intended to permanently change the demographic reality on the ground and erase any notion of Ukraine and its statehood.
From our own investigations into occupied territory, we have documented how Russian soldiers have forcibly transferred and deported thousands of Ukrainians in occupied areas deeper into Russian-held land or even into Russia itself. Many—including those with disabilities, the elderly, and children—are being held incommunicado and forced to accept Russian passports to secure pensions, treatment, or medicines.
Maksym, who has been unable to use his legs since birth, was among them. He described Russian officials arriving at his institution in Kherson in late 2022 to take the residents “to the seaside.”
Anyone who refused was locked in rooms and their phones confiscated. Maksym was taken from everyone he knew and moved against his will to the Russian town of Anapa. His wheelchair was taken in transit.
When Russia tried to force a passport on him for the second time, he had to smuggle himself out of the country with the help of a network of Ukrainian volunteers. Others were not so lucky and are still missing, like Inna, 46, who has Down’s Syndrome. She was taken with 54 women from her institution into Russian-occupied Crimea in November 2022 and hasn’t been seen again.
Her parents are still desperately searching for her. We uncovered credible evidence that Ukrainian children with disabilities are among 1000s sent to “re-education” camps.
There, they are given pro-Russian lessons, with revised history, Russian language, and culture lessons. One Ukrainian official put it to me that, quite literally, the aim was to erase the memory of Ukraine.
More recently, I have spoken to people in occupied territory who say it is now impossible to access social services, healthcare, keep a job, get a bank account, buy or even retrain your house if you do not take the Russian passport.
Russia itself has recently declared that they have issued 3.5 million passports to Ukrainians living in occupied territory in total. And this week, the UK Ministry of Defence warned that possession of a Russian passport would also constitute eligibility for conscription into the military, demonstrating “the Russian senior leadership’s continuing commitment to, and pursuit of, a Russification policy”.
All of this is concerning against the backdrop of the emergence of a possible ceasefire.
Following a very public spat with US President Donald Trump and then negotiations with US officials in Saudi Arabia, President Zelensky said on Wednesday that he would back a 30-day US-brokered truce to allow consultations on a longer peace plan. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who led the Jeddah talks, said the US would take the proposal to Russia and that “the ball is truly in their court.”
In a joint statement, the US and Ukraine said the truce would include the exchange of prisoners of war, the release of civilian detainees, and the return of thousands of forcibly transferred Ukrainian children. Russia is examining the deal, with Kremlin officials saying it is “early days”.
But the concern is that, with Russia advancing—albeit slowly— in Ukraine they will have no interest in a ceasefire that doesn’t include significant capitulations from Ukraine.
And even though Putin has spoken of the need for long-term peace, the aim of a deal would be to allow Russia, as it has done before, to regroup, re-arm, and attack again, all while entrenching the illegal annexation of Ukrainian land by changing the demographic reality on the ground.
Putin himself said in June that his terms were that Ukraine must officially drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from the entirety of four Ukrainian regions claimed by Russia.
Russia controls around 20 per cent of Ukraine, or about 120,000 sq km (46,000 sq miles), including 70 per cent of Kherson, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, and more than 99 per cent of Luhansk region, according to open-source maps and Russian estimates. Putin wants all of those oblasts handed over.
There are deep concerns that even if that extreme demand is dismissed, and the battle lines are frozen where they are, the reality on the ground in these four regions is so completely changed, it will become increasingly impossible for Ukraine to ever be able to negotiate their return to Ukrainian control.
Any ceasefire deal must come with guarantees for Ukraine that it is not just a path to more loss and erasure—that it is not a pause to allow another bloody, ruinous invasion.
