Ukraine’s religious sites have been repeatedly targeted by Russia over the course of the war.

Photo via Wikipedia

HRW analyzed around 8,000 cases involving property seizures filed between March 2024 and January 2026 in 25 courts in occupied areas, with court records showing “consistent disregard of evidence of ownership and efforts by owners to assert their rights.” The seizure of property has affected millions of displaced Ukrainians or those who refuse to re-register their properties under Russian law, as they are stripped of shelter, income, or the means to sustain their lives. The rights group claims that this process undermines the prospect of refugees and internally displaced people returning home in “safety and dignity.”

HRW associate Ukraine director Yulia Gorbunova stated: “Millions of Ukrainians have been forced to flee their homes in areas under Russian occupation due to the ongoing war. Now they also face the unlawful seizure of their property as Russia blatantly disregards its obligations as an occupying power.”

In October 2022, Russian authorities introduced “an unlawful and opaque administrative process” in occupied areas, through which Ukrainian owners are required to re-register their property under Russian law by January 2028. Ukrainian property owners are also required to obtain Russian citizenship to participate in this process. The deadline, however, was later brought forward to July 2026, with Russian authorities claiming residents had already had “more than enough time” to re-register their property. The authorities designate the private property that is not re-registered as “ownerless,” after which courts transfer it to municipal ownership.

Following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia unilaterally annexed the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts (regions), imposing their own administrative and legal systems. This annexation has been rejected as unlawful under international law. Russian authorities have also “methodically made passportization a tool of administrative control by linking all essential services to accepting Russian citizenship,” including phone communication, as SIM cards from local operators now require Russian identification.

According to Maksym Beznosiuk, a strategic policy specialist: “Moscow’s ultimate objective is to force pro-Russian allegiance and erase any traces of Ukrainian identity. Ukrainians who resist these efforts are receiving administrative removal orders and forced expulsions.”

Article 51 of Customary International Humanitarian Law, which applies universally to all warring parties, prohibits an occupying power from confiscating private property without justification of military necessity. Regulation 46 of the Hague Convention (1907), to which Russia is a party, provides a similar prohibition.

From JURIST, May 28. Used with permission. Internal links added.

See our last report on Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

Map: PCL

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Photo: Xinjiang Judicial Administration via The Diplomat

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has stated that the strike was deliberate, pointing to the drone’s low flight altitude as evidence. A criminal investigation has been opened under Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine—violation of the laws and customs of war.

Zelensky also announced that he held a meeting with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director-general Rafael Grossi on the 40th anniversary of the disaster. “I emphasized the unacceptability of formalizing and legitimizing Russia’s presence at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant,” he wrote on the X social media platform. (World Nuclear News, Chosun, AA Energy Terminal, The Guardian, BelSat,

Russian forces briefly occupied the Chernobyl site at the start of the war in 2022, but later withdrew. Russia continues to occupy and have operational control of the Zaporizhzhia facility, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.

Strikes across Ukraine, Russian-occupied territory and Russia killed at least 16 people on the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. The greatest toll was in Dnipro, where Russian drone and missile strikes on the city killed at least nine. (AP)

See our last reports on the Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia nuclear plants.

Photo: Wikipedia

The Sudzha gas pipeline is also still carrying Russian hydrocarbons to European markets through Ukrainian territory.

Image: Soviet postage stamp celebrating oil pipeline. Via Wikipedia

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Photo: Tony Webster via Wikimedia Commons

“For the first time in the history of this war, an enemy position was taken exclusively by unmanned platforms—UGVs and drones. The occupiers surrendered, and this operation was carried out without the participation of infantry and without losses on our side,” Zelensky said in a video statement released April 13. The video showed Zelensky speaking in a room full of various drones and UGVs. He did not give a precise location for the territory taken in the operation.

The president said various robotic systems, including the Ratel, Termit, Ardal, Lynx, Snake, Protector and Volya, have carried out more than 22,000 missions over the past three months, aimed at reducing risks to personnel.

“Lives were saved more than 22,000 times—a robot went into the most dangerous areas instead of a soldier. This is about high technologies in defense of the highest value—human life,” Zelensky said.

Earlier this month, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense reported a sharp increase in the use of ground robots on the front lines, with more than 9,000 missions completed in March alone. This marks a sharp rise from roughly 2,900 operations in November 2025.

Military analysts believe these UGVs are for the most part remotely controlled rather than fully autonomous, but the technology is developing rapidly. (SOFX, PRI)

Photo via Nashaniva.com

Over 343 organizations have been deemed “undesirable,” 1,173 individuals and groups have been designated as “foreign agents,” and 830 organizations and 20,813 individuals have been put on “terrorist” and “extremist” watch lists.

This has recently escalated with the targeting of several key Russian human rights organizations. On April 8, six activists from the Vesna youth movement were sentenced to between eight and 12 years imprisonment for participating in an “extremist organization” because of their opposition to the Ukraine war.

These efforts to restrict fundamental freedoms have escalated since the start of the war against Ukraine in 2022. The rapporteurs describe a “repressive toolbox” used by authorities, stating:

[T]he government has deployed methods like massive designations or organisations as “undesirable” or “foreign agent,” along with the intstrumentalisation of national security and public safety legislation to target lawyers, journalists, anti-war activists, and human rights defenders.

On April 9, Russia’s Ministry of Justice requested that Nobel Peace Prize laureate International Memorial Movement be designated as an “extremist organization.” If granted by the courts, the designation would expose individuals and organizations associated with Memorial to criminal liability, including imprisonment. The move follows the liquidation of two Memorial-affiliated organizations under the “foreign agents” law in 2021. The rapporteurs said this new designation “reflects a deliberate and calculated strategy to spread fear among Russian people and deprive them from independent information, human rights defence, advocacy, and legal assistance.”

The Memorial Human Rights Defence Center in a statement highlighted its 40-year history of investigating Soviet-era state terror and political persecution, and asserted: “We understand that the case against ‘Memorial’ is yet another attempt to intimidate all dissenting voices in the country and silence civil society.”

Russian authorities have also targeted indigenous human rights defenders. For example, in June 2024, the Supreme Court of Russia grouped together 55 indigenous and minority organizations as a “movement” to label them as “extremist,” a move met with condemnationby the International Committee of Indigenous Peoples of Russia. This has also resulted in arbitrary detentions of rights advocates Daria Egereva and Natalya Leongardt. They were charged for their involvement with Aborigen Forum, an informal network of indigenous defenders.

Other examples show how widespread this pattern of repression has been throughout the Ukraine war. In November 2025, Russian authorities proscribed Human Rights Watch as an “undesirable organization,” which effectively criminalized involvement in the group. Around the same time, the prosecutor general’s office opened a case against Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot seeking to have them designated as extremists, a designation already imposed on several individual members. Additionally, authorities labelled the Anti-Corruption Foundation, founded by the late opposition leader Aleksei Navalny a “terrorist organization.”

Human Rights Watch has also recently warned of escalating online censorship, including internet and cellular access shutdowns and the blocking of Telegram, one of the most popular social media platforms in Russia.

From JURIST, April 11. Used with permission. Internal links added.

See our last report on resistance and repression in Russia. See our last podcasts on the internet crackdown and the persistence of dissidence.

Photo: Pavel Kazachkov via Wikipedia

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Photo: Tony Webster via Wikimedia Commons

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Book discussed:

Tolstoy’s Search for the Kingdom of God: Gender and Queer Anarchism by Javier Sethness Castro, Routledge 2025

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Composite image by CounterVortex from Ilya Efimovich Repin via Wikimedia Commons and Sasha Braulov via Instagram