How Russia is driving Ukrainians out of their homes
She travelled hundreds of kilometres, spending four days on the road to return from Poland, where she found safe haven during the war in 2022, aiming to resolve property issues. After three months in occupied Mariupol, she reached one conclusion: over the four years since Russia established control, not only has the city changed—its people have changed as well.
Another Mariupol resident, Olena Volodymyrivna (her name has been changed for security reasons because she remains in the occupied city while her daughter lives in Ukrainian-controlled territory), says that almost none of the families who lived in her nine-story apartment building before Russia's full-scale invasion are still there.
"On my floor, only two of the six apartments are occupied—mine and one across the hall, where an Uzbek family now lives. In the summer of 2022, they arrived as construction workers, but after they stopped being paid, they opened a stall selling traditional Uzbek flatbreads. There's also a family from Tatarstan on the sixth floor. The rest of the apartments are empty. I hardly have anyone left to talk to. Most newcomers don't even speak Russian well. They're Tatars, Uzbeks, Bashkirs… So, these are the 'Russians' who have come to replace us," she says.
European Union 2026
Since 2022, Russia has systematically pursued demographic replacement in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. Occupation authorities have created conditions that make remaining at home increasingly difficult, risky, or impossible for Ukrainians while offering Russian citizens financial incentives and preferential treatment to relocate to what the Kremlin calls its "new territories."
Independent demographic research is impossible under occupation, making it difficult to verify population changes. However, residents interviewed for this report estimate that Russian citizens now account for 30–50% of Mariupol's current population. Before the occupation, Mariupol had a large Russian-speaking community, but these residents were overwhelmingly Ukrainian citizens rather than citizens of Russia.
Square meters
Housing has become one of the occupation authorities' most effective tools for demographic replacement.
According to occupation officials, around 5,000 Mariupol families remain without permanent housing. Local residents believe the real number is much higher. Many people who lost both their homes and documents during the siege cannot even apply for compensation, leaving tens of thousands trapped in a housing crisis four years after the invasion.
Meanwhile, Russians arriving in the city are often given apartments immediately and free of charge. Many of these homes belonged to Ukrainians who fled Mariupol or were killed during Russia's assault.
"It didn't take long before we noticed Russian construction workers moving into apartments that had survived the fighting. Thousands of local people were left homeless, while Russians were given apartments—our apartments—which the occupation authorities conveniently label as 'ownerless'," says Nadiia K., who has remained in Mariupol to care for her 87-year-old mother.
"Construction crews would go door to door while repairing buildings. If they found an empty apartment, they simply moved in," she recalls.
Later, these inspections were taken over by occupation authorities. As a result, around 25,000 apartments in Mariupol alone have been reportedly confiscated by the Russian authorities.
People who lose their homes this way rarely return. Their place is taken by Russian settlers encouraged to relocate to the temporarily occupied territories.
A key incentive is preferential mortgage lending. While mortgage rates across Russia have returned to market levels, temporarily occupied territories still offer subsidized mortgages at 2% interest. In practice, however, these loans are available almost exclusively to Russian citizens because the eligibility requirements effectively exclude most local residents.
"First of all, you have to be officially employed to qualify for a mortgage. Here, only people working in the public sector have formal employment," Nadiia explains.
"You also need at least six months with the same employer. But people here are constantly being dismissed, transferred, or simply stop receiving salaries and are forced to quit. Even those with official jobs usually earn no more than 30,000 rubbles a month, which is nowhere near enough to afford a mortgage."
As a result, newly built apartments in occupied Mariupol are being purchased primarily by Russians from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, and other regions.
This trend is confirmed not only by residents but also by Russian state institutions. Russia's Unified Institute for Spatial Planning acknowledged that only 25% of buyers in occupied Donetsk Oblast are local residents, while 75% come from other regions of Russia. According to the institute's director, Dina Sattarova, most buyers come from Moscow and the Moscow Region, as well as the Volga, Northwestern, Ural, Siberian, and Southern federal districts in Russia.
These figures reveal more than housing demand—they demonstrate a deliberate effort to reshape Mariupol's future population, one that is clearly not intended to be Ukrainian.
Employment
Before Russia's full-scale invasion, Nadiia's husband worked at the Azovstal Steel Plant. After the plant was destroyed, his only options were dangerous rubble-clearing work or low-paid construction jobs.
"My husband refused to clear rubble because in 2022 and 2023 workers were almost daily killed or injured by unexploded ordnance. Instead, he became a construction labourer," Nadiia says.
"He earned only half the salary paid to workers from Moscow and St. Petersburg and about one-third less than workers from Central Asia. Even those reduced wages were constantly delayed or withheld. He changed employers three times because he simply wasn't paid, while workers from Moscow always received their salaries on time. Many local people eventually left Mariupol to look for work elsewhere in Russia because they could no longer tolerate such blatant discrimination."
Russia also continues to attract specialists from within the country through programs such as "Zemsky Doctor" and "Zemsky Teacher," which provide substantial financial bonuses to professionals willing to relocate to temporarily occupied territories. According to Nadiia, Russian doctors receive roughly twice the salary of local doctors.
Confiscated housing, subsidized mortgages, unequal employment conditions, and financial incentives form a coherent policy that encourages Russian settlement while steadily pushing Ukrainians out of their own communities.
The full demographic consequences of this policy will become clear only after the liberation of these territories.