On 29 August, the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra gave a performance in London. In an interview with The Guardian, Keri-Lynn Wilson said: “Culture is our soul. It’s what gives Ukrainians their identity.”
Russia continues to occupy Ukrainian territories. Crimes, human rights violations, forceful Russification and the attempts to completely erase the existence of Ukrainian identity – that’s what Ukrainian people in occupied territories are facing.
The Ukrainian identity is one of the things Russia is attempting to destroy in the occupied Ukrainian territories and replace by forceful imposition of a Russian identity. It does so by the abduction and education of Ukrainian children, population replacement and forced passportisation. Ukrainian activists are either killed, disappeared or jailed. As the Ukrainian Armed Forces continue to defend Ukraine and Europe, it is important to remember and talk about what is going on in the territories Russia occupies.
Ethnocide: housing and population replacement
Many Ukrainian people fled the Russian occupation, leaving behind their houses and flats.
Confiscation of housing is one of the main issues in Ukrainian territories under Russian occupation. Lots of Ukrainians had to flee their homes, but Russian occupation authorities established that if a person is absent for a long time, their housing is seized and then either resold or ‘distributed’ to Russian military personnel.
As of December 2024, hundreds of industrial enterprises, about 1,500 mines, and even 3.4 million hectares of agricultural land have been confiscated. Russia is also forcibly changing the population by moving its own people to occupied territories with the aim of replacing the Ukrainian population with Russians. As a result of this population influx, few people will consider themselves Ukrainian.
Removal of any connection to Ukraine
The people who are living under Russian occupation are Ukrainian citizens. Ukrainian citizenship has become another part of Russia’s war on Ukrainian identity, as Russian occupation has created conditions such that Ukrainians are forced to take Russian passports. The methods include setting up checkpoints, ordering healthcare professionals to refuse treatment for Ukrainian nationals, and setting up administration points for Russian passport applications inside healthcare facilities. Without Russian passports, Ukrainian nationals in occupied territories are considered ‘foreign citizens’ and can no longer own property, receive pension payments, or access health and social care.
Cultural genocide
Russia also aims to erase Ukrainian culture and language. Cultural genocide against Ukraine was manifested after Russia invaded Ukraine and Russian troops began confiscating and destroying Ukrainian history and fiction books “that do not correspond with the Kremlin propaganda” in the libraries of then-occupied parts of Sumy, Chernihiv, as well as Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. It is also demonstrated by looting museums, stealing cultural artefacts, demolishing Ukrainian memorials, and reinstalling statues of Russian cultural and historical figures.
Russia is resorting to propaganda campaigns as an aggressive reminder of its control: there are billboards showing Putin, Russian soldiers and Russian flags.
Jaroslava Barbieri, a doctoral researcher at the University of Birmingham, UK, and a specialist in the Russian state’s attempts to de-sovereignise Ukraine, says that Russia is aiming to alienate the local population from the rest of Ukrainian society.
Children: abduction, education, militarisation
Children are among the targets of Russia’s war on Ukrainian identity, as they have had less exposure to anything that instils Ukrainian identity, and they are easy to indoctrinate. The education of children has become one of the weapons in Russia’s attempts to erase Ukrainian identity. Children are taught in Russian, using the Russian curriculum and textbooks that justify Russia’s war against Ukraine. The history lessons are taught in a way that spreads Russian propaganda.
Erasing the Ukrainian language
As part of a broader campaign to erase Ukrainian identity, Russia is seeking to eradicate the Ukrainian language in schools. Stanislav Fedorchuk, chairman of the Ukrainian People’s Council of Donetsk and Luhansk, said that the occupiers understand perfectly well the importance of cultural identity: a person who knows the Ukrainian language could in the future become part of the Ukrainian world, a part of the Ukrainian community.
Efforts to teach or study Ukrainian risk persecution by Russian occupation authorities. Oleh Okhredko, an analyst at Almenda Center of Civic Education, said that after the occupation of Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions, occupation authorities set about removing Ukrainian books from schools and libraries, sometimes burning them and often replacing them with Russian books. The children are also indoctrinated through visits by Russian soldiers to schools, trips to exhibitions and tours around Russia.
Military indoctrination camps
Apart from education that aims to remove any connection to Ukraine, Russia is also conducting militarisation as part of a campaign to turn Ukrainian children against their own country and prepare students for military service. Russia is using a militaristic youth organization, Yunarmia, to foster the loyalty of teenagers in occupied parts of Ukraine and prepare them to fight in Moscow’s war against their native country.
Ukrainian children are placed in special training centres meant to strip Ukrainian youth of their national identity and undergo Russian military-style training and education in Russian language, culture and patriotic ideology. Research has revealed 136 ‘camps’ in which as many as 20,000 kidnapped Ukrainian children, some as young as eight, are being held and forcibly indoctrinated.
Abduction and deportation
Child abduction and forcible deportation to Russia has also become another way to separate Ukrainian children from their families and their identity. Ukrainian officials estimate that occupying forces have taken some 20,000 Ukrainian children from their families and sent them to Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine or locations in Russia and Belarus, placing them either in Russian foster families or at boarding schools or training camps. The UK government estimates that some 6,000 Ukrainian children have been relocated to a network of ‘re-education camps’ in Russia.
Ukrainian children are being cut off from their nation, their country and their identity. Russia is using children to impose Russian identity and their control in the region. They are attempting to create a future generation of people who will think of themselves as Russians and of Ukraine as their enemy.
Ukrainian identity is an integral part of a Ukrainian nation and the foundation of a Ukrainian state. And currently, it is under threat of disappearance due to Russian aggression, as Russia demonstrates its refusal to accept the existence of Ukraine as an independent state with its own nation and its own identity.
Zelensky government’s big mistake
On a final note, in July, the Zelensky government made a big mistake by attacking anti-corruption institutions, sparking criticisms and accusations of authoritarianism. Ukrainian people even came out to protests, causing the Ukrainian government to backtrack and pass a new law. It is important to highlight that any internal problems, whether in Ukraine or the rest of Europe, are a gift for pro-Russian narratives, which would seek to exploit them to cut off support to Ukraine. One should also remember that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are fighting for Ukraine and for the Ukrainian people.
Europe is providing support to Ukrainian people who are victims of genocide, to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and to ensure the continued existence of Ukraine as a democratic state. European allies and EU institutions are right to request that the Ukrainian government strengthens democracy and fights corruption. However, Europe should be aware of the risk that Russian disinformation may portray Ukraine’s internal problems as an excuse to abandon Ukrainians to genocide by Russia. Whatever happens in Ukraine and other European countries, it does not change the fact that Russia remains an aggressor and a threat to all of Europe.
