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Starting in 2025, Ukrainians with diabetes, bronchial asthma, and other illnesses in Russian-occupied territories will lose access to free medications unless they acquire Russian passports, according to the Eastern Human Rights Group.
This practice has already been enforced in Starobilsk, Luhansk Oblast, where residents without Russian citizenship are denied medical services and medications under social programs.
Patients must also be registered and included in a specific registry to receive this aid, the human rights group wrote on Facebook.
The move further pressures Ukrainians in occupied areas to accept Russian citizenship or face severe health consequences.
Ukraine's National Resistance Center condemned this policy as an act of genocide aimed at erasing the Ukrainian identity.
Russia systematically coerces residents of the occupied parts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts to accept Russian passports, the U.S. research group Ukraine Conflict Observatory reported on Aug. 2.
On July 21, the National Resistance Center said that Russian occupation authorities in some parts of Kherson Oblast force the residents to accept Russian passports under the threat of deportation. In other cases, those who hold on to their Ukrainian passports reportedly face losing their property rights, prison sentences, and mobilization into the Russian army.
According to the Ukraine Conflict Observatory, Russia's methods constitute a serious violation of international law, as the Hague Convention of 1907 forbids to "compel the inhabitants of occupied territory to swear allegiance to the hostile Power."
The Kyiv Independent news desk
(Updated: )
