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Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Parts of Ukraine's 1/2021 Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Parts of Ukraine’s Donbas since 2014 — Halya Coynash UI Reports on Human Rights and Security in Eastern Europe No. 1 PUBLISHED BY THE SWEDISH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS | UI.SE Summary This report highlights human rights violations in the two self-proclaimed ‘republics’ in the Donbas (Donets Basin) region of Ukraine since April 2014. Most such violations are the result of Russia’s effective, yet persistently denied, political control over the pseudo-states. Former prisoners of the so-called Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics have reported torture and the absence of fair trials, as well as a much larger number of captives held than officially acknowledged by the two satellite regimes. Ukrainian and independent media have been expelled from the occupied territories and replaced with outlets engaged in daily anti-Ukrainian propaganda and disinformation. Children and young people are being inculcated with a variant of Russia’s military-patriotic education. Any future reintegration of the currently occupied parts of Ukraine’s Donbas into the Ukrainian state will require more than the mere withdrawal of Kremlin mingling. A number of policy recommendations are made to begin the reintegration process. Halya Coynash Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group This is the first publication in a series of UI Reports focusing on human rights and security in Eastern Europe. © 2021 The Swedish Institute of International Affairs Language editing: Andrew Mash Photo: TT Introduction ongoing propaganda and militarization campaigns, in the occupied territories of There have been egregious abuses of eastern Ukraine, especially those directed at political and civil rights in the occupied young people. Section 5 deals with arbitrary territories of eastern Ukraine since 2014. In imprisonment and systematic torture and Freedom in the World 2020, Freedom House section 6 illustrates the far-reaching gave what it refers to as Eastern Donbas restrictions on political and religious life. The (Donets Basin) a score of 5 points out of 100 concluding section formulates observations and a ‘Not Free’ rating in its table of Global and policy recommendations for the Freedom Scores. This was much lower than Ukrainian state and Kyiv’s various Ukraine’s score of 62 points and its ‘Partly international partners, including the Free’ ranking for government-controlled Organization for Security and Co-operation areas and also notably less than Russia’s 20 in Europe (OSCE). The report provides only points and even somewhat below occupied glimpses of the wide range of human rights Crimea’s 8 points out of 100.1 Only Eritrea, abuses in the two pseudo-states. Its North Korea, South Sudan, Syria, Tibet, recommendations cover only some of the Turkmenistan and Western Sahara were most urgent – and by no means all of the ranked below the separatist territories of necessary – measures required to improve the Donbas, in terms of access to political the situation. rights and civil liberties in 2020.2 Russia’s Ambivalent Stance in the The so-called Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Donbas Republics (Russ. abbrev.: LNR and DNR) have existed as self-proclaimed republics, but de Although the two pseudo-states are facto Kremlin-installed and guided puppet financed, armed and tightly controlled by regimes, since 2014. These fictitious Russia, Moscow has not formally recognized statelets occupy roughly one-third of the the LNR and the DNR. The Kremlin currently overall Donbas in eastern Ukraine, and parts appears to view them as useful for of Ukraine’s Luhans’ka and Donets’ka undermining Ukrainian state- and nation- oblasts – the Luhansk and Donets’k Regions. building. It also sees them as future Although there are certain political instruments for influence over and the differences between the two, the human destabilization of Ukraine as a whole. rights violations that occur in both the LNR Moscow’s official denial of its control over and the DNR are largely similar. the LNR/DNR is one reason why the human rights situation there is even more dire This brief report highlights the major human there than in annexed Crimea. Being beyond rights issues in the occupied territories of the realm of Russian legislation and civil the Donbas. The next section outlines a society, the territories of the LNR and the number of peculiarities of the two satellite DNR lack even the low degree of regimes’ political set-ups and the transparency, the rudimentary rule of law consequences for human rights protection. and the partial public scrutiny of officials Section 3 focuses on the severe limitations that exist in Russia. on the freedoms of the mass media and political speech. Section 4 outlines the 1 Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2020: A 2 Freedom House, Countries and Territories, December Leaderless Struggle for Democracy, December 2020. 2020. https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom- https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2020- world/scores 02/FIW_2020_REPORT_BOOKLET_Final.pdf © 2021 The Swedish Institute of International Affairs 3 For instance, as part of their local warlords. A variety of – often grave – ‘nationalization’ drives having gained human rights violations are commonplace. control of parts of the Donbas, the LNR and Especially brutal measures are meted out the DNR have appropriated not only against Ukrainians who might reveal the Ukrainian state enterprises, but also many involvement of Russian military and security companies belonging to people now living in service personnel in the LNR and the DNR. government-controlled Ukraine. According Halyna Haieva, for example, a 60-year old to the eastern Ukraine NGO, Vostok SOS, nurse, was imprisoned and tortured in the such seizures have happened on a mass notorious Izoliatsiia (Isolation) secret prison scale.3 in Donetsk for making a list of Russian military service personnel treated in her Nonetheless, the territories of the LNR and hospital.4 the DNR are universally considered by Kyiv, Moscow and the West to still be part of In December 2020, the Chief Prosecutor of Ukraine. Against this background, the the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Ukrainian authorities have been criticized by Bensouda, announced that she had found international bodies for the ongoing reasonable grounds to believe that war situation in which pensioners must travel to crimes and other crimes against humanity government-controlled areas of the Donbas that fall within the ICC’s jurisdiction have in order to receive their Ukrainian pensions. been committed in both occupied eastern There is no viable solution to this issue that Ukraine and annexed Crimea.5 Among those would not in some way recognize the illegal who provided testimony to the ICC were republics or provide them with certain former victims of torture and incarceration financial benefits from the Ukrainian state. in secret prisons such as Izoliatsiia and The situation of pensioners in the occupied witnesses to extrajudicial executions.6 territories of the Donbas was already dire before 2020 but has become even more Restrictions on Media Freedom critical since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The resulting restrictions have Each time Russian and Russia-armed made it very difficult for elderly people to militants seized control of part of Donbas in cross into and from the government- spring/summer of 2014, they quickly controlled areas. blocked access to Ukrainian television. Within five days of temporarily capturing Putative judicial, law enforcement and Slovians’k, for instance, the militants had governmental structures have been installed seized the television tower and replaced in the pseudo-states but, behind this facade, Ukrainian channels with Russian ones.7 After the two republics are little more than occupying Donets’k, the largest city in the arbitrary fiefdoms ruled by Kremlin-installed 3 Vostok SOS, Report on rights violations in occupied https://www.icc- Donbas in November 2020, 7 December 2020. cpi.int/Pages/item.aspx?name=201211-otp- https://vostok-sos.org/vijskovi-zbori-v-l-dnr-ta- statement-ukraine situacziya-z-covid-19-porushennya-prav-lyudini-na- 6 Aseyev, St. and Umland, A., ‘Isolation’: Donetsk’s tot-zafiksovani-u-listopadi/ Torture Prison, 4 December 2020. 4 Mashai, B., ‘Izoliatsiia’: place of pain and terror in hir.harvard.edu/donetsks-isolation-torture-prison/ Donetsk, 6 December 2019. 7 Separatists in Sloviansk seize local television tower https://zn.ua/ukr/personalities/izolyaciya-misce- and cut Ukrainian television, 17 April 2014. bolyu-i-strahu-v-donecku-332154_.html https://novosti.dn.ua/news/205936-v-slavyanske- 5 Statement of the Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, on the separatysty-zakhvatyly-mestnuyu-televyshku-y- conclusion of the preliminary examination in the vyklyuchyly-ukraynskoe-tv situation in Ukraine, 11 December 2020, © 2021 The Swedish Institute of International Affairs 4 Donbas’s, in June 2014, the Russia-led so-called Ministry of State Security (Russ. separatists forced the removal of a number abbrev.: MGB). The individual, who insisted of Ukrainian television channels.8 The on full anonymity, asserted that each militants justified their censorship by channel has its own censor in the DNR MGB claiming that Ukrainian channels ‘incited who is told what can be shown and what is enmity’ and ‘discredited their republics’.9 taboo.13 These actions had much to do with the Access to the internet and social media is enhanced role that Russian and pro-Russian somewhat less restrictive, although many local media outlets would seek to play in the websites, including the main Ukrainian sites occupied zones in Crimea and the Donbas. providing information about Russian military In parallel with its military operation, engagement in the Donbas and countering Moscow conducted a deliberate campaign disinformation, were already being blocked of defamation through its state-funded within the first six months of the channels, which among other things spread occupation. Over the years, official LNR the narrative that Ukraine’s army was policy, for example, has closely followed deliberately bombing civilians, Kyiv was Russia’s overt policy of officially blocking engaged in genocide,10 and, in one certain websites.
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