HRW formulates a whole series of recommendations to put an end to the illegal forced displacements, individual or collective of population. These recommendations are addressed in particular to Russia, which must stop putting pressure on civilians and facilitate their return to Ukraine.
The Russian authorities must also stop their collection of biometric data and if it turns out that they are legal, limit the duration of their storage. HRW also calls on international authorities (the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Organization for Migration, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the International Committee of the Red Cross) to monitor temporary placement centers in Russia and other countries to accommodate fleeing Ukrainian citizens, even those without passports.
A plan to respond to the demographic crisis in Russia?
HRW interviewed around 100 witnesses: 18 people who actually went to Russia, 10 of whom were “screened”, 8 others who were “screened” in this way but were able to go to Ukraine, others who were able to enter Ukrainian territory without being interrogated, plus residents of Mariupol and Kharkiv, whose families have been transferred to Russia, as well as lawyers and activists in Russia and Europe.
The question of the number of people thus displaced remains shrouded in uncertainty. HRW has no reliable information on this subject. But this is a significant number of forced displacements.
On June 20, Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister estimated that 1.2 million Ukrainians had been forcibly taken to Russia, including 240,000 children. At the end of July, the Russian news agency TASS spoke of more than 2.8 million Ukrainians entering Russia from Ukraine, including 448,000 children, specifying that approximately half of these Ukrainian citizens were holders of passports from the Self-proclaimed “Luhansk People’s Republic”, an area controlled by Russian-affiliated armed groups and currently occupied by Russia. And to in mid-August Russian media even reported that more than 3.4 million Ukrainians, including 555,000 children, had entered the Russian Federation from Ukraine.
Millions of Ukrainian civilians, therefore, illegally forcibly transported to Russia, a figure completely impossible to verify, but so enormous that it raises questions. Why is Russia acting this way?
HRW limits itself to stating the findings, but if we look into the recent past, we find the same kind of absorption of populations. After the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the integration into the Russian Federation of a large Russian-speaking population (2.3 million) was welcomed. Because Putin’s Russia has been fighting once morest a proven demographic decline since the fall of the Soviet Union.
A huge concern for 30 years
1992 is the year of the turning point for Russia: a large developed country sees its mortality rate exceeding that of birth. The forecasts are grim: from 146 million today, Russia might stagnate between 130 and 140 million inhabitants by 2050. Excess male mortality due to alcoholism, declining birth rate, emigration and finally devastation due to Covid ( almost a million dead, according to some estimates)…
Moreover, the share of Russians is decreasing, from 81.5% of the population in 1989 to 77.7% today. Despite a pronatalist policy centered on financial incentives, the Russian-speaking or more generally Slavic populations, mostly Christians, see their relative weight decrease in the face of higher birthrates of the Muslim populations, living in Russia or immigrants from the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. A rebound has been observed since 2010, but not enough.
This thwarts the projects of Vladimir Putin, who is counting on the demographic growth of his country to restore its greatness.
An unproven motivation, but illegal movements
Consequently, the injections of Russian-speaking populations are welcome, and it is in this context that one must understand the distribution of passports to the South Ossetians, the Abkhazians and the Transnistrians, plus the annexations of Crimea and one day perhaps to be from Donbass.
And so without doubt, these last forced transfers of Ukrainian civilian populations are to be understood in this way, a conclusion that HRW absolutely cannot draw on the basis of its research. “This question must be asked, but I leave the answer to historians and political scientists. What is certain is that these forced displacements, whatever their motivation, are illegal“, concludes Rachel Denber.
This week, the Russian media also reported on the ongoing discussions in Moscow on integration pathways. New structures are put in place to integrate these populations who have recently arrived in Russia. The approach seems clearly focused on education in Russian values, Russian language and history.