Life Under Russian Occupation: Ukrainians Face Hardships and Persecution
Four years into its full-scale invasion, Russia controls approximately twenty percent of Ukrainian territory, where an estimated three to five million people reside. In these occupied regions, daily existence is marked by profound difficulties with water, heat, housing, and healthcare, compounded by systematic campaigns to identify and punish those deemed disloyal to the new authorities.
A Harrowing Escape and Lingering Trauma
Inna Vnukova, now safely in Estonia, cannot erase the terrifying memories of living under Russian occupation in eastern Ukraine during the war's early stages. She, her husband Oleksii, and their then sixteen-year-old son Zhenya hid in a damp basement in their village of Kudriashivka following the February 2022 invasion. Outside, soldiers brandishing machine guns intimidated residents, established checkpoints, and looted homes amidst constant shelling.
"Everyone was very scared and afraid to go outside," Vnukova recounted to The Associated Press, noting that troops specifically targeted Ukrainian sympathizers and civil servants like her family. In mid-March, she made the desperate decision to flee with her son and brother's family, leaving her husband behind temporarily. Their perilous car journey to Starobilsk involved waving a white sheet through mortar fire.
"We had already said our goodbyes to life, cursing this Russian world," said Vnukova, forty-two. "I've been trying to forget this nightmare for four years, but I can't." Many Ukrainians followed similar paths, while those who remained risked detention or worse as Russian forces consolidated control.
Forced Russification and Systemic Control
In the illegally annexed regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia, Russian citizenship, language, and culture are imposed on residents. School curricula and textbooks have been altered, and by spring 2025, around 3.5 million people in these areas had received Russian passports, a prerequisite for accessing essential services like healthcare.
Mykhailo Savva of Ukraine's Center for Civil Liberties describes the Russian military's "systemic and total control" as ongoing. "Even though a significant number of socially active people have already been detained, Russian special services continue to identify disloyal Ukrainians, extract confessions, and continue to detain people," Savva explained. Daily life involves document checks, mass searches, and denunciations.
Human rights groups report that Russian authorities utilized "filtration camps" to screen individuals for disloyalty, targeting government workers, those aiding the Ukrainian military, journalists, teachers, scientists, and politicians. Stanislav Shkuta, twenty-five, who lived in occupied Nova Kakhovka, narrowly escaped arrest multiple times before reaching Ukrainian-controlled territory in 2023. He recalled a bus being stopped by Russian soldiers.
"It was horrific. Men and women were asked to strip to the waist to see if they had Ukrainian tattoos," said Shkuta, now in Estonia. "I turned white with fear, wondering if I'd cleared everything on my phone." His friends remaining in Nova Kakhovka report life worsening, with suspected sympathizers stopped on streets or during surprise door-to-door inspections.
Detention, Torture, and Intimidation
Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Center for Civil Liberties, states that Russia established a "vast network of secret and official detention centers where tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians" are held indefinitely without charge. "Everyone knows that if you end up in the basement, your life is worth nothing," she said.
Ukrainian Human Rights Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets estimates about 16,000 civilians have been illegally detained, though the true number may be higher due to incommunicado holdings. A U.N. report from last summer, covering July 2024 to June 2025, interviewed fifty-seven detained civilians; fifty-two described severe beatings, electric shocks, sexual violence, degradation, and threats.
A prominent case involves Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna, twenty-seven, who disappeared in 2023 while reporting near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and died in Russian custody. When her body was returned to Ukraine in 2025, a prosecutor noted signs of torture, including organ removal.
"Russia uses terror in the occupied territories to physically eliminate active people working in certain fields: teachers, children's writers, musicians, mayors, journalists, environmentalists. It also intimidates the passive majority," Matviichuk asserts.
Destruction and Russification in Mariupol
Mariupol, besieged and captured by Russian forces in May 2022, epitomizes the devastation. The Russian bombing of the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theater on March 16, 2022, killed nearly six hundred people, the single deadliest known attack on civilians in the war. Most of the city's pre-war population of half a million fled, but many hid in basements.
A former actor, now in Estonia and speaking anonymously to protect his seventy-six-year-old parents still in Mariupol, described huddling for months with his family, nearly killed by bombing. His parents took Russian citizenship for medical care and received a one-time payment equivalent to $1,300 per person as compensation for their destroyed home.
Russification in Mariupol includes changing street names, implementing Moscow-approved school curricula, using Russian telecom networks, and aligning with Moscow's time zone. "But even today, the threat of death has not gone away. Only those who have Russian passports can survive," the former actor said, adding his parents warned against sending postcards in Ukrainian as "it could be dangerous."
Housing remains a critical issue, with the population halved since 2022. New apartment blocks built on ruins are sold to Russian newcomers rather than displaced locals. At least 12,191 apartments in Mariupol were listed as "ownerless" and expropriated in the first half of 2025, with thousands more seized elsewhere.
Crumbling Infrastructure and Healthcare Shortages
Years of war and neglect have left occupied cities with severe infrastructure failures. In Sievierodonetsk, once home to 140,000 people, only 45,000 remain, mostly elderly or disabled. A single ambulance crew serves the entire city, with doctors rotating in from Russian regions like Perm.
In Alchevsk, Luhansk region, over half the homes lacked heat for two bitterly cold months, prompting five warming stations. Utility companies reported over sixty percent of municipal heating networks in poor condition, with no repair funds. Pro-Moscow politician Oleg Tsaryov criticized authorities for freezing "an entire city," contrasting the current response with Ukrainian efforts in 2006.
Donetsk region residents rely on water trucks, but barrels freeze solid in winter. "There's constant squabbling over water," said an anonymous resident, describing "insane" lines and missed deliveries. Residents have appealed to Putin over what they call "a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe."
Putin acknowledged the struggles last year, marking the third anniversary of annexation. "I know how difficult it is now for the residents of the liberated cities and towns. There are many truly pressing, urgent problems," he said, citing water supplies and healthcare access, and announcing a "large-scale socioeconomic development program."
Building New Lives Amid Uncertainty
Inna Vnukova and her family are rebuilding in Estonia, with a one-year-old daughter, Alisa, and their son now twenty. Only about 150 people remain in their former village of 800, including their parents. Vnukova dreams of showing her daughter their native Luhansk region someday.
"We've been dreaming of returning for four years, but we increasingly wonder — what will we see there?" she asked, encapsulating the uncertainty and loss pervading occupied Ukraine.
