Ethnic Replacement as a Tool of Russian Neocolonisation

The Systematic Alteration of the Demographic Composition of Occupied Regions in Favour of a Moscow-Loyal Population

Introduction

The occupation of parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, which began in 2014 and took on a new scale following Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, is accompanied by processes that extend far beyond military control over territory. Alongside repression, forced passportisation, and the destruction of infrastructure, a systematic demographic transformation is under way — the gradual replacement of the local population and local elites with people loyal to Moscow or directly connected to Russian state structures.

This investigation documents that process on the basis of material from two occupied regions, the so-called "Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR)" and "Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR)", and examines it as an instrument of neo-colonisation: the deliberate alteration of the demographic and institutional composition of occupied territories with the aim of their deeper integration into Russia's political and economic space.

The analysis covers five dimensions of this process. First, replacement in government: the personnel composition of the occupying "administrations", traced across the period from 2014 to 2026, reveals a consistent displacement of local officials and their replacement by appointees from Russia. Second, replacement in the labour market: federal programmes such as "Zemsky Teacher" and "Zemsky Doctor" incentivise a mass influx of Russian specialists into the occupied territories, forming a new professional hierarchy. Third, the propagandistic framing of these processes: the resettlement of Russians is presented as a humanitarian mission and an act of "reconstruction", rather than demographic engineering. Fourth, the social conflicts arising from the formation of a new hierarchy — between privileged resettlers from Russia, local residents, and labour migrants. Fifth, the long-term consequences: the combined effect of these processes creates the preconditions for an irreversible transformation of the demographic composition of the occupied regions.

The evidentiary basis of this investigation encompasses open-source data from occupying administrations, material from pro-Russian media outlets, Telegram channels of local communities, international human rights reports, and eyewitness testimony. Where the verification of sources is limited, this is noted separately in the text.

1. Ethnic Replacement in Government

When the "people's republics" were proclaimed on the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 2014, their leaders actively positioned these entities as a "local uprising". The symbolism of popular self-determination, the rhetoric about "protecting the Russian-speaking population", and the emphasis on local leaders were all designed to convince the world that what had occurred in Donbas was not an occupation, but a community's self-organisation.

However, the composition of the executive authorities of the "DPR" and "LPR" tells a fundamentally different story. The question of who actually governs the occupied territories is not merely an administrative one, but a political one: it reveals whether any local autonomy is preserved at all, or whether governance has been transformed into an instrument of direct external control. This is precisely the central research question of this chapter: whether one can speak of a gradual displacement of local elites by Russian appointees, and if so, at what point that process became irreversible.

The "Government of the DPR" and the "Government of the LPR" (formerly the Councils of Ministers) are quasi-state bodies that formally perform the functions of regional governments on the occupied territories. In terms of their institutional structure, they almost entirely replicate the model of the Russian federal government (a head of government, deputy heads, and ministers). Each "ministry" has its own hierarchy: a minister, deputies, and departments. Formally, they are responsible for developing and implementing "state policy" within their respective spheres, but in practice a significant proportion of decisions are either imported from Russian agencies or coordinated with them.

Methodology

For each of the two regions, a quantitative analysis of the composition of the "governments" was conducted across three chronological snapshots: 2014, 2018, and 2026. The positions examined were those of the head of government, deputy heads, and ministers — that is, those who constitute the executive apparatus of the occupying administration. Individuals who held two positions simultaneously were counted only once.

To assess the personnel composition, open-source materials were used: official websites and archived publications of the occupying administrations, occupying and pro-Russian media outlets, the Myrotvorets database, and international analytical reviews. Where a position was held by more than one person within a single cross-section, the individual who held it for the longest period was taken into account.

The origin of each official was established on the basis of place of birth, citizenship, and prior career history. An individual was categorised as a "citizen of the Russian Federation" where a confirmed place of birth in Russia was identified; as "local" where a confirmed connection to the relevant region was established; and as "other regions of Ukraine" where birth or career in other Ukrainian oblasts was documented. Where an official's background could not be established from open sources, the individual was placed in the "unknown" category. The approach does not claim to offer a comprehensive biographical reconstruction, but enables the documentation of a structural trend: how the balance between local figures and appointees from Russia has shifted, and how that shift corresponds to the political turning point after 2022.

Analysis of the So-Called "Government of the DPR"

2014: A Crisis Management with a Local Face

The first fully constituted "government" of the "DPR", formed on 16 May 2014, comprised 23 individuals (excluding those who repudiated their appointments). At first glance, its composition did indeed appear "local": 17 of the 23 cabinet members (74%) were natives of Donetsk oblast. Among them were the future "head of the republic" Zakharchenko, the first deputy prime minister Purgin, and the ministers of finance, energy, labour, and security. Notably, three appointees — the ministers of health, justice, and audit — immediately declined their positions, citing an absence of "agreements". This speaks to how chaotic and unprepared the "people's government" appeared from the outside.

Yet behind this local façade lay a fundamentally different structure of power. Three confirmed citizens of Russia (13% of the composition) occupied exclusively strategic posts: head of government, minister of defence, and minister of economic development. The first head of the "government" was the Russian political technologist Alexander Borodai. The minister of defence, Igor Girkin, had been an officer of the Russian FSB (1996–2013) prior to his arrival in Donbas. And the Ministry of Economic Development was headed by Volodymyr Pidhornyi — a native of Sverdlovsk oblast. In other words, the principal strategic axis (government, military, economy) was under the direct control of Moscow from the very outset, whilst local figures served primarily as a means of legitimation. This is the classic model of occupying governance: the metropolitan power controls the strategic apex; local collaborators manage routine governance.

The transitional character of this arrangement was not even concealed in public. In explaining his own removal as early as August 2014, Borodai explicitly described himself as a "crisis manager" — that is, a person dispatched for a specific moment, not for long-term governance.[1] The task of the first phase was not for Moscow to govern openly, but to set a managed structure in motion amid conditions of chaos — and to transfer it beneath a local façade as swiftly as possible. For this reason, 2014 is more accurately described not as a "popular uprising", but as a phase of hybrid command management: the majority of formal positions were occupied by people from Donbas, yet the key security and political decisions were, by definition, beyond their control.

Quantitative Snapshot — 2014

●      Russian Federation — 3 individuals (13%)

●      Local (confirmed + probable) — 17 individuals (74%)

●      Other regions of Ukraine — 2 individuals (9%)

●      Unknown — 1 individual (4%)

(see Appendix 1: Government of the "DPR", 2014)

2018: The Peak of "Normalisation" and Covert Control

By 2018, the picture had changed — yet not in the direction of greater independence for the "republic", but towards a more sophisticated concealment of its dependence. The Ananchenko government (December 2018 – June 2022) comprised 24 individuals, of whom 15 (63%) were local residents of Donetsk region, with a further four originating from other regions of Ukraine. The share of Russian Federation citizens rose from 13% to 21%.

At first glance, this does not appear to represent a radical displacement. However, this stage is well described by the concept of occupying governance through "managed localisation". Local officials retain the majority of positions, but this does not mean they retain political sovereignty. On the contrary: the regime may leave local figures in visible roles in order to create an impression of internal continuity, whilst the real lines of subordination converge ever more strongly on Moscow.

The prime minister himself, Ananchenko — a native of Selydove in Donetsk oblast — embodied this new model of "local" governance, yet he is considered a protégé of Dmitry Kozak, Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation.[2] Local origin and Moscow loyalty are not mutually exclusive characteristics: the Kremlin deliberately selected local officials, but only those who had been vetted for complete manageability.

Quantitative Snapshot — 2018

●      Russian Federation (confirmed + probable) — 5 individuals (21%)

●      Local — 15 individuals (63%)

●      Other regions of Ukraine — 4 individuals (17%)

(see Appendix 2: Government of the "DPR", 2018)

2026: The Current State

The current composition of the executive authority of the "DPR" comprises 25 individuals. Of these, 11 are confirmed citizens of the Russian Federation (44%), with a further individual being a probable Russian citizen (4%). This means that the combined Russian share has risen to 48% — nearly four times the figure recorded in 2014. At the same time, the share of local figures has fallen from 74% to 40%.

What is most significant here is not even the fact that Russian appointees have now come close to equalling local figures in number, but that they are concentrated at the most consequential nodes of governance: the head of government, the first deputy head, a number of the deputy prime ministers, and the sectoral ministers responsible for the economy, digitalisation, education, labour, and social protection.

Local residents of Donetsk region, by contrast, are concentrated predominantly in secondary "social" positions: the minister of sport (Shvets), the minister of transport (Bondarenko), the minister of finance (Vartanova), and the minister of natural resources (Shebalkov). These are posts that do not determine strategic direction.

Quantitative Snapshot — 2026

●      Russian Federation — 11 individuals (44%)

●      Local — 10 individuals (40%)

●      Other regions of Ukraine — 3 individuals (12%)

●      Probable Russian Federation — 1 individual (4%)

(see Appendix 3: Current Composition of the "DPR" Government, 2026)

COMPARATIVE TABLE 1

The quantitative analysis of the composition of the "DPR" governments in 2014, 2018, and 2026 documents an unambiguous trend: the share of Russian Federation citizens in the executive authority has grown from 13% to 48% — nearly a fourfold increase over twelve years. At the same time, the share of local residents of Donetsk oblast has contracted from 74% to 40%.

Particularly telling is not the overall percentage, but the distribution of posts: the strategic tier of government — the head, the first deputy, the key economic and security ministries — has passed under the complete control of Moscow, whilst local figures have been left with secondary "social" portfolios. This is a classic neo-colonial construction: the metropolitan power controls the commanding heights, whilst local administrators provide routine governance and symbolic legitimisation.

Analysis of the So-Called "Government of the LPR"

2014: The Beginning

In 2014, the so-called "government of the LPR" consisted largely of local collaborators who had unexpectedly built "political" careers against the backdrop of Russia's hybrid intervention. Prior to the events of the "Russian Spring", the majority of them had no involvement in politics and had played no part in the governance of the region. Most of these figures ceased to participate in the management of the "LPR" grouping after being relieved of their "ministerial" posts. Over the course of 2014, the "Council of Ministers of the LPR" underwent several reorganisations, changes of "prime ministers", and dissolutions. Throughout this period, the "government" resembled an umbrella concept containing posts that would not feature in any subsequent "governments" — for example, "Head of the State Reserves Agency", "Head of the Recovery Management Centre", and "Commander-in-Chief of the People's Militia".

Quantitative Snapshot — 2014

●      Total number of positions: 29

●      Ukrainians (by origin): 28 (96.5%)

●      Russians: 1 (3.5%)

(see Appendix 4: Government of the "LPR", 2014)

The sole Russian in the "government" was listed as Serhiy Ignatov — in reality, Russian military officer Serhiy Kuzovlev. According to data from the Security Service of Ukraine, Serhiy Kuzovlev directly commanded the actions of "LPR" mercenaries, was involved in weapons supply, and coordinated operations against the Armed Forces of Ukraine. For the purposes of concealment, he used fictitious names; however, intercepted communications confirmed his true identity as a general of the Russian Federation.

Despite the Ukrainian origin of the majority of its members, the so-called "government of the LPR" of 2014 was entirely a puppet structure. It was formed under the direct influence of Russia and consisted predominantly of local collaborators who, prior to the onset of the hybrid operation, had no connection whatsoever to politics or to the governance of the region.

2018: Before the Invasion

In 2018, the so-called elections to the "People's Council and the Head of the LPR" were held on the temporarily occupied territories, and the "Council of Ministers was reorganised", with new "ministers" appointed or existing ones reappointed. This "government" was the last to exist prior to Russia's full-scale invasion and the second annexation of Ukrainian territories. It had the appearance of a localised governance instrument: key positions were occupied predominantly by individuals from Luhansk and the surrounding region, whilst Russian presence was targeted and concentrated in sensitive sectors.

●      Total number of positions: 24

●      Ukrainians (by origin): 21 (87,5%)

●      Russians: 3 (12,5%)

(see Appendix 5: Government of the "LPR", 2018)

Russian presence was targeted and precise:

●      the fuel and energy sector (Malgin),

●      the digital sphere (Fetisov),

●      "state security" (Antonov).[3]

The concentration of Russian administrators specifically in energy, communications, and the security apparatus does not appear coincidental. It follows a logic that replicates colonial practices of territorial control through key nodes — resources, information, and security. In the early phase (2014–2018), Russia did not wholesale replace the local "administration", but embedded its representatives in nodal positions through which the largest financial flows passed (coal extraction, energy, fuel), as well as information flows (communications, media, propaganda) and coercive control over the population.

In neo-colonial logic, resources are the primary target. The fact that, as early as 2018, this sector was under the control of a Russian administrator means that the economic sovereignty of the territory was never envisaged from the outset. In colonial models, communications and media likewise serve as instruments of cultural and cognitive subjugation. The population is not merely governed administratively — it is gradually integrated into a different information space. It was precisely through the "Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Communications" that narratives about "unity with Russia", "the people of Donbas", and "the Kyiv Banderite regime" were disseminated.

2026: The Current State

As of 2026, the "Government of the LPR" is headed by Russian national Yegor Kovalchuk. Prior to relocating to the occupied territory of Ukraine, he had served as mayor of the city of Miass (Chelyabinsk oblast, Russian Federation), and before that as deputy governor of Chelyabinsk oblast. He was appointed to the post of "Chairman of the Council of Ministers" in 2024 by the leader of the "LPR" grouping, Leonid Pasichnyk, following consultations with Moscow. Kovalchuk replaced Serhiy Kozlov, who had headed the body since 2015. Following his replacement, Kozlov withdrew from politics and ceased to participate in the political life of occupied Luhansk oblast. Kovalchuk's appointment took place within the framework of a broader process of replacing local personnel with administrators from the Russian Federation. He was accompanied by a number of ministers originating from Russia.

●      Total number of positions: 23

●      Ukrainians (by origin): 15 (65,2%)

●      Russians: 8 (34,8%)

(see Appendix 6: Current Composition of the "LPR" Government, 2026)

These figures confirm the gradual shift in personnel policy within the "LPR", where the share of individuals directly originating from the Russian Federation in the governing body has grown from approximately one eighth to more than one third of the total composition.

Russians occupy:

●      the head of government (Kovalchuk),

●      deputy prime ministerial positions (Zharkov, Kusov),

●      industry, natural resources, education, and construction,

●      youth policy, sport, and the economy,

●      internal affairs.

Russian administrators are advancing to the level of strategic leadership, rather than merely sectoral oversight.

COMPARATIVE TABLE 2

The quantitative analysis of the composition of the "LPR" governments in 2014, 2018, and 2026 documents an unambiguous trend: the share of Russian Federation citizens in the executive authority has grown from 3% to 35% — a more than tenfold increase over twelve years. At the same time, the share of local residents of Luhansk oblast has contracted from 93% to 65%.

Whereas in 2014 local origin was characteristic of an almost absolute majority of officials, by 2026 the strategic tier — the head of government and the relevant ministries covering energy, industry, natural resources, and internal affairs — had passed under the control of appointees from Russia. Local figures have been left predominantly with secondary social and technical portfolios. This is the same neo-colonial construction: the metropolitan power controls the commanding heights, whilst local administrators provide routine governance and serve as a buffer absorbing social discontent.

Deputy Ministers as an Additional Layer of Control

The trend towards a growing Russian personnel presence is even more pronounced at the level of deputy ministers. According to our data, the "government of the LPR" in 2026 included at least eight Russians among the "deputy ministers" — the direct "assistants" to the heads of the "ministries". In some agencies there are two or three deputies, one of whom turns out to be an individual originating from the Russian Federation. This is an indicator of theoretical dual power: even where the "minister" is nominally local, his deputies are trusted figures from Russia. This matters more than the formal presence of "ministers", because it is the deputies who manage day-to-day operations and ensure continuity of policy even when ministers change. In effect, a fully embedded management circuit is being formed, in which key functions are duplicated by Russian personnel.

The Presence of Russians in the Local Governance of Occupied Luhansk Oblast: The Role of "Mayors" in the Model of Control

The list of heads of occupied cities in Luhansk oblast reveals one consistent pattern: at the level of municipal administrations ("heads of municipal districts"), individuals with a local background predominate — either natives of the region or those whose careers were tied to Luhansk oblast prior to the occupation. This applies to major centres (Luhansk, Sievierodonetsk, Lysychansk) as well as smaller towns (Stakhanov, Brianka, Rovenky). Open biographical data are limited, but the absence of confirmed "seconded" Russian administrators specifically at the level of mayors is itself telling.

There is a functional logic to this within the system. Municipal governance is responsible for water and heating networks, housing stock, transport and logistics, and public utilities. In the destroyed or degraded infrastructures of Luhansk oblast, this requires not formal expertise but knowledge of specific schemes and informal management practices. Local personnel possess this knowledge — however approximate — whilst Russian appointees do not.

This also reveals a key element of the model. Municipal heads serve as a buffer between the population and Russian authority: they are responsible for everyday problems (water, heating, prices); it is to them that residents turn; and it is they who become the target of criticism.

This creates a distribution of responsibility: the local level is associated with problems, whilst the Russian level distances itself from them. In this configuration, discontent does not travel upward through the vertical hierarchy, but is contained within local administrations. Our observations indicate that criticism and accusations regarding the absence of public services, poor-quality repairs, high prices, and transport problems are directed at the local "authorities" — not at local "ministers", the Kremlin, or Vladimir Putin personally.

In parallel, a propagandistic line is constructed in which Russian authority is presented as the source of resources ("reconstruction", "assistance", "investment"), whilst local authority is cast as the executor that "does not always cope".

This makes it possible to establish a divide in public perception:

●      the centre (Russia) — "provides"

●      the periphery (the cities) — "fails to use effectively"

As a result, Russian presence is framed as an external driver of development, rather than as a cause of destruction or crisis.

This system fits well within the logic of neo-colonial governance. Formally, governance is exercised by local personnel, but strategic decisions are taken outside the region, budgetary policy depends on Russian centres, and coercive control is provided not by local structures but by external ones. The metropolitan power positions itself as a guarantor of security and a provider of resources, whilst local elites bear responsibility before the population. This reduces the risk of disloyalty without requiring direct personnel replacement.

Mechanisms of Elite Replacement

Following the proclamation of annexation in September–October 2022, personnel changes in both "republics" acquired a new legal foundation — a Russian one. Federal Constitutional Laws No. 5-FKZ and No. 6-FKZ of 4 October 2022 transferred all executive power in the "DPR" and "LPR" to "acting heads" (individuals appointed by Putin's decree) and obliged the formation of new governing bodies "in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation".[4] [5] The constitutions of the "republics", adopted at the end of 2022, entrenched a model whereby the head independently appoints and dismisses the prime minister, all deputies, and all ministers, merely "consulting" local representative bodies as a formality — without those bodies retaining any right to block any decision.[6] [7]

In this way, the constitutional architecture of both "republics" after 2022 constitutes a legally formalised vertical hierarchy that structurally excludes any local influence over the personnel composition of the government.

Beyond this legal underpinning, Russia's strategy of phased elite replacement operates through three mechanisms.

The first is the "patronage" programme. Officially, the "patronage" programme is presented as humanitarian and reconstruction assistance. In practice, such channels serve as instruments of personnel transfer. More than 80 regions of Russia are now official "sponsors" of cities and districts in the occupied territories: for example, Moscow directly oversees Donetsk and Luhansk themselves. It was through Nizhny Novgorod's "patronage" over Khartsyzk that the minister of labour Isayev — who had previously headed social policy in Nizhny Novgorod oblast — was brought into the "DPR". The logic behind such appointments is not concealed by those involved: "officials from Russia will solve problems more easily and quickly than locals."[8]

The second mechanism is presidential personnel programmes. A separate mechanism is the targeted preparation of administrative personnel for the occupied territories through presidential programmes subordinate to Sergei Kirienko, First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation. The "DPR" minister of education, Trofimov, is a winner of the "Leaders of Russia" competition; the "DPR" deputy prime minister Emelyanov is a participant in the "Time of Heroes" programme, which trains administrative personnel from veterans of the "special military operation". Donbas appointments have become one of the official "tracks" of both programmes.

The third mechanism is the rotation model through career transfers. In the "DPR", three prime ministers have been replaced since June 2022 — Khotsenko, Solntsev, Chertkov — none of whom has any genuine connection to Donbas. Khotsenko came from the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, served nine months in the post, and was rewarded with the governorship of Omsk oblast; Solntsev — from Russian Railways and the Russian Ministry of Construction — governed for two years before departing as governor of Orenburg oblast. In the "LPR", the same trajectory is demonstrated by the "minister of economic development" Ugolkova: a native of Russia, who after 2022 headed the "Ministry of Industry" of the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia oblast before transferring to Luhansk.[9] The "minister of culture" Kucharsky followed the same route through occupied Zaporizhzhia.[10]

This model is a structural hallmark of colonial governance: the "periphery" serves as a testing ground for vetting loyal personnel and as a springboard for further advancement within the metropolitan centre. Notably, following annexation a new post appeared in Luhansk — First Deputy Head of the Administration of the Head of the "LPR" — which in June 2025 was filled by Anna Roslyakova from Ryazan.[11] She has been tasked with overseeing matters of domestic policy, religion, and inter-ethnic relations. The very fact of the introduction of "inter-ethnic relations" as a distinct administrative area is symptomatic: prior to 2022, no such need existed. The local population is now officially regarded as a "multi-ethnic environment" subject to integration into the Russian model of a "multinational state" — and that integration is managed by an appointee from a Russian region.

Comparative Summary: DPR vs LPR

Both regions demonstrate a shared trajectory — the consistent displacement of local elites by Russian appointees — yet at different speeds and from different starting points.

The "LPR" began with a higher share of local personnel and retains it to this day — yet the vector is identical. The difference is explained not by any divergence in Moscow's logic, but by the different institutional base at the outset: the "DPR" had from the beginning a higher share of Russian "crisis managers" in the security bloc, whilst the "LPR" was formed predominantly from local collaborators with no prior governance experience.

What is common to both is what matters most: if 2014 can be described as an occupation with a local face, then 2026 is an occupation that no longer considers it necessary to maintain that face. The strategic tier of both governments — budget, industry, energy, education, security structures — is under the direct control of Moscow. Local figures have been left in the role of executors.

2. Ethnic Replacement in the Labour Market

When Russia announced the "annexation" of four occupied Ukrainian regions in September–October 2022, alongside the decrees on "incorporation into the Russian Federation" another system also came into force — a system for the mass recruitment of Russian specialists to work in these territories. The official narrative described this process in terms of reconstruction, a humanitarian mission, and the "restoration of normal life". An analysis of the mechanisms and outcomes of this policy points to something different: the systematic replacement of local labour with Moscow-loyal personnel from the metropolitan centre, carried out through state programmes, financial incentives, and institutional pressure.

The Labour Market: Shortage and Loyalty as a Condition of Employment

The employment structure in occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts must be understood in the context of two interconnected processes: the mass outflow of the local population and an artificially engineered replacement flow from Russia.

Schools are experiencing an acute shortage of teachers, particularly subject specialists. As a result, teachers in occupied Donetsk oblast have to to combine multiple posts.[12] In occupied Luhansk oblast, the occupying administration itself acknowledges more than one thousand vacant teaching positions. In the medical sphere the situation is even more acute: in March 2025, the occupying minister of health of the "DPR" officially acknowledged that the staffing level for doctors' posts stood at only 47.8%, and for mid-level medical personnel at approximately 60%.[13] In other words, more than half of the required doctors are absent, and the system is sustained through the combining of posts.

It is significant that access to employment in the occupied territories is not a neutral market process. All construction workers responding to job advertisements in Donetsk are required to undergo FSB screening prior to deployment — a practice that constitutes a systemic requirement for all those employed in the public sector.[14] Refusal to obtain a Russian passport automatically excludes a person from the official labour market: without one, access to healthcare, education, wages, and pensions is impossible. Passportisation thus performs a dual function: it simultaneously serves as an instrument of demographic control and as a means of coercive integration into the occupying labour market.

In the following sections, we examine in greater detail the two federal programmes that constitute the central mechanism for recruiting Russian public-sector workers to occupied Donbas — "Zemsky Teacher" and "Zemsky Doctor".

"Zemsky Teacher"

"Zemsky Teacher" is a federal programme launched in Russia in 2020 to address the personnel shortage in rural education. The key condition for participation is relocation to a settlement with a population of up to 50,000 and the signing of an employment contract for a minimum of five years. For teachers relocating to the "DPR", "LPR", Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts, a one-off payment of 2 million roubles is provided — twice the standard rate applicable to the rest of Russia's regions. The extension of the programme to the "DPR" was officially announced in autumn 2023; to the "LPR" — in 2024.

The scale of funding has grown steadily. In 2025, approximately 600 million roubles were allocated to the "Zemsky Teacher" programme from the federal budget — all 599 planned vacancies across 79 regions of the country were filled. In 2026, the number of places and the funding were doubled: 1,216 vacancies and more than 1.18 billion roubles have been provided for.[15] The programme has been extended to 2030, and the total number of its participants across Russia has already exceeded 6,300 teachers.[16]

Over the two years of the programme's operation in the "DPR" (as of October 2025), the relocation of at least seven teachers from various regions of Russia has been documented — from Saratov, Pskov, Khabarovsk Krai, and elsewhere.[17] In occupied Luhansk oblast, 15–18 individuals had been recruited as of 2026: the first cohort in 2024 comprised approximately 13 teachers,[18] a further 2 arrived in 2025,[19] and a probable 3 in 2026.[20] The geography of resettlement encompasses Khabarovsk and Stavropol Krais, Bashkortostan, North Ossetia, and Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk, Tyumen, Kursk, and Ivanovo oblasts.

Looking at it generally, this is a modest scale, but the concentration is significant: teachers are distributed across small communities where a single school has a small staff, and the arrival of even one or two newcomers alters the personnel balance.

The profiles of individual programme participants reveal how the official rhetoric of "mission" is overlaid onto the reality of career relocation. Alexei Vershin — a physics and mathematics teacher from Saratov oblast who relocated to a school in the Starobesheve district of the Donetsk oblast — described his decision very precisely: "Teachers are responsible for the future of Russia. The new regions of Russia are in an extremely difficult situation, and the 'Zemsky Teacher' programme is designed to resolve at least some of these problems."[21] This narrative of "Russia's new regions" and a "new social reality" is a direct reflection of Moscow's official narrative. At the same time, Vershin also acknowledged the pragmatic dimension: "Of course, I heard many arguments against going: the proximity to the line of contact, a new place, unfamiliar people, the housing factor." This admission confirms that 2 million roubles is a sufficiently powerful incentive to overcome well-founded concerns about one's personal safety.

Some participants headed to the Luhansk oblast state openly that they do not mind where they are sent — a telling indicator of an orientation towards financial gain rather than place. It is equally telling that the public interviews given by programme participants contain no political reservations whatsoever about relocating to the occupied territories — suggesting either deliberate loyalty or a complete acceptance of the official framework in which the occupied territories are "historical regions".

In addition to standard subjects, teachers in the occupied territories run clubs and activities associated with civil defence and the "defence of the motherland", and establish military clubs — activities that within the Russian system are bound up with elements of military-patriotic education.

"Zemsky Doctor"

"Zemsky Doctor" and "Zemsky Paramedic" are federal programmes that have been in operation since 2012. In March 2023, by order of the Russian Government, they were extended to the occupied parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts. Doctors relocating under the programme are entitled to a one-off payment of 1 million roubles, whilst paramedics and mid-level medical personnel receive 500,000.[22] In July 2024, on Putin's personal instruction, these sums were doubled: doctors may now receive up to 2 million roubles, and paramedics, midwives, and nurses up to 1 million.[23] In addition to the one-off payments, participants are guaranteed reimbursement of relocation costs for all family members and rental accommodation for the first months.[24]

In occupied Donetsk oblast, approximately 70 specialists have been recruited across three years of the programme's implementation: 17 doctors in 2023, 20 in 2024, 33 in 2025, and a planned 45 for 2026.[25] [26] In occupied Luhansk oblast, according to data from the Luhansk Regional Military Administration, 27 specialists have been recruited over three years: 21 doctors and 8 paramedics;[27] according to the occupying administration's own figures — 10 specialists in 2023, 11 in 2024,[28] 25 in 2025,[29] and a planned 50 for 2026.[30] [31]

There is a significant difference in participant profiles between the two regions. In Luhansk oblast, a considerable proportion of documented participants are local graduates of Luhansk Medical University, which has continued operating under occupation. The entry threshold for locals is lower: they already have housing or family in the region,[32] and the university automatically integrates its graduates into the local system. Doctors from Russia — from Dagestan,[33] [34] Saratov and Moscow oblasts, and Crimea — have a different motivation: they are often connected to military or state structures,[35] and for them this represents a financial or professional incentive. Their conditions are also better: whilst those from Luhansk are in practice not provided with housing despite the terms of the programme, organisational support for those arriving from the Russian Federation is real and tangible.

Graduates of Russian medical institutions are generally in no hurry to travel to the occupied territories — Russia itself faces a shortage of medical personnel, and conditions in the "new regions" are perceived as a worse version of the same problem. For local doctors, 2 million roubles appears as a solution to material difficulties; for a Russian doctor, it is insufficient compensation for the real risks involved.

Despite the growing figures, the programme fundamentally fails to resolve the structural deficit — 70 specialists over three years against a 52-percent shortfall in doctors' posts in the "DPR" amounts to statistical noise. Yet the very presence of these specialists performs an important institutional function: they are carriers of Russian medical nomenclature, record-keeping systems, and standards that are replacing Ukrainian ones. The "Zemsky Doctor" programme functions not as an instrument for systematically resolving the personnel deficit, but as a mechanism for the gradual reformatting of institutions together with the people who will work within them.

"Zemsky" Expansion: Russian Programmes as an Instrument of Neo-Colonialism

The logic of the "Zemsky" programmes is not confined to education and medicine. In late February 2024, Putin announced the launch of the "Zemsky Cultural Worker" programme: a specialist relocating to a small town or village in the occupied territories receives 2 million roubles.[36] In 2025, the programme began operating directly in occupied Donetsk oblast: the first eight specialists received their payments and were distributed across municipal cultural institutions;[37] a competitive selection for a further 12 recipients has been announced for 2026.[38] In Luhansk oblast, 16 cultural workers have been documented as recruited, with an overall target of approximately 30 specialists; the donor regions are Rostov oblast, Krasnodar Krai, Voronezh, Tyumen, Dagestan, and Sakhalin oblast.

The institutions to which specialists are directed — community centres, libraries, music schools, and art schools — are precisely those institutions that shape the cultural identity of local communities. The resettlement into these institutions of carriers of Russian cultural norms, who sign five-year contracts, is the most colonial element of the entire "Zemsky" system.

In early February 2026, a "Zemsky Coach" was added to the configuration of programmes: in occupied Donetsk oblast, six coaches are planned to be recruited under a new programme with an identical financial model — 2 million roubles for those resettling to Donbas.[39] For 2026, 2.8 billion roubles have been allocated to the "Zemsky Coach" programme across Russia as a whole. In Luhansk oblast, the target is 32 specialists, though the number already recruited has not been disclosed.[40] The sphere of physical culture and sport encompasses youth leisure and upbringing: a coach from Russia delivering the GTO programme ("Ready for Labour and Defence") is not a neutral sports professional, but an agent of cultural integration for the new generation.

At the same time, the launch of a "Zemsky Journalist" programme is under discussion — an initiative of the Union of Journalists of Russia, aimed at journalism graduates with an obligation to work for up to five years in small towns on the occupied territories. This is effectively a revival of the Soviet system of personnel distribution, now extended to the occupied periphery.

Beyond the "Zemsky" programmes, a third mechanism of local replacement is in operation — the federal programme for the voluntary resettlement of "compatriots" in the Russian Federation, introduced in 2006. By presidential decree, residents of the occupied territories born on "historical lands" (the territory of the former USSR and the Russian Empire) were granted the right to participate in the programme under simplified conditions: they are exempt from the language test, and regions of the Russian Federation are obliged to provide support in the form of housing, education, and employment.[41]

Analytically significant is the two-directional demographic logic of this mechanism. The "Zemsky" programmes pump personnel from the metropolitan centre to the occupied periphery, whilst the "compatriots" programme moves the flow in the opposite direction, incentivising a portion of the local population to relocate to Russia. The former thus fills public-sector positions with Moscow-loyal personnel from the Russian Federation, whilst the latter reduces the mass of potentially disloyal local population by offering it a "voluntary" exit. The official rhetoric — "a return to the Motherland" — conceals the fact that both processes are carried out simultaneously and are structurally complementary elements of a single demographic strategy.

The cumulative effect of the mechanisms described is the formation of a distinct three-tier social hierarchy in the labour market of the occupied territories, which will be examined in greater detail in Section 4.

Conclusion

The analysis of the "Zemsky" programmes in occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts allows the processes described to be characterised as systematic personnel demographic engineering. All of the programmes replicate a single scheme: doubled financial incentives for the "new regions", five-year contracts, federal competitive selection, and organisational support from the occupying administration. All of them are directed at small towns and rural localities — that is, precisely those communities where local identity is most vulnerable and social institutions are least protected against external personnel replacement.

The key structural feature that distinguishes this policy from ordinary personnel recruitment is the asymmetry of access: local public-sector workers are denied "resettlement" payments, are subject to loyalty screening as a condition of employment, and without obtaining a Russian passport are excluded from the labour market altogether. The occupying administration simultaneously pushes local human capital into the lower tiers of employment and pumps into those same positions carriers of Russian cultural and institutional norms.

There is one significant difference between the two regions: in Luhansk oblast, the "Zemsky Doctor" programme partly draws on local graduates of the local medical university, forming a more hybrid model of integration. However, this difference does not alter the vector — it merely slows it. Control is established not through the mass replacement of the population, but through the reformatting of the labour market, institutions, and motivations, calculated for long-term transformation. The metropolitan centre imports not only specialists, but institutions — new standards, nomenclatures, curricula, and value frameworks — rendering this replacement irreversible through contracts that extend to 2030.

3. Propaganda Legitimising These Processes

The demographic changes on the occupied territories do not take place in an information vacuum. Every mechanism of replacement is accompanied by a corresponding narrative that attempts to foreclose any perception of these changes as replacement. The propagandistic architecture that has taken shape in occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions reproduces three structurally complementary narratives, each of which attacks the issue from a different angle.

Key Narratives

1. "Reconstruction" and "Rebuilding" as a Cover for Replacement

The "reconstruction" narrative is the most operationally dense element of the propaganda accompanying demographic change. Its analytical complexity lies in the fact that it is not purely fictitious: construction does genuinely take place, façades are renovated, facilities are opened. However, on closer examination, "reconstruction" functions not as the restoration of what has been damaged, but as the replacement of one symbolic space with another — one bearing a different identity and different cultural markers.

In occupied Donetsk oblast, this logic is illustrated by the case of Mariupol. In September 2025, the occupying administration presented a large-scale development project for the central districts, envisaging the demolition of low-rise historic buildings on Hretska, Mytropolytska, and Kuindzhi streets — quarters associated with Greek colonisation and Ukrainian urban culture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.[42] In their place, new residential complexes intended for resettlers from Russia are planned. "Rebuilding" thus means the dismantlement of the physical bearers of local memory. At the same time, the "restoration" of the Molodyozhny (Youth) Palace of Culture in Mariupol ended with the insertion of white uPVC windows in place of the originals and plastic gates in place of the wrought-iron ones.[43] "The official authorities couldn't care less about this building. Just as they couldn't care less about the whole city" — this comment from local activists has been recorded. The aim is not the preservation of authenticity, but the creation of an outward image of "normal life" for external broadcast.

The rhetoric of "patron regions" performs the same function. The repair of roofs, water pipelines, schools, and hospitals is presented as a selfless gesture of "fraternal assistance": "In 2025, patron regions restored 1,900 facilities in Donbas and Novorossiya, improving the quality of life of approximately 2.6 million people."[44] The framing "patron region — recipient territory" reproduces a hierarchy in which the subject of the Russian Federation acts as the source of resources, administrative decisions, and legitimacy, whilst the occupied territory is cast as the object of guardianship. In decolonial studies, such constructions are described as a form of paternalistic governance in which assistance is not neutral: it entrenches dependency and normalises inequality.

Common to both regions is also the narrative of "the centre as the source of knowledge and standards": Russia is positioned as the sole bearer of professional expertise, whilst the occupied territories are framed as a space of deficit in need of "supplementation" from outside (for example, "The problem of dilapidated and leaking roofs had remained one of the most acute for many years").[45] Local specialists are not directly negated, but their agency is diminished through the constant use of formulations such as "in some places a fresh perspective is needed, in others things simply need to be adjusted".

2. "Zemsky" Programmes as a "Humanitarian Mission"

As documented in detail in the preceding section, the "Zemsky" programmes are invariably presented within the media space of both occupied regions in a rhetorical frame of "assistance", "accessibility", and "development".

This frame performs several functions simultaneously. First, it neutralises the possibility of perceiving resettlement as replacement by substituting the subject: it is not Russia that is replacing local personnel, but "specialists who voluntarily travel to help". Second, it appeals to genuine local needs — and does so with some justification, given that the personnel deficit is real — but does not explain that this deficit is a direct consequence of the occupation itself. Third, it legitimises the presence of each individual resettler by appealing to the common good, rendering criticism at the individual level impossible.

Relocation is presented as a voluntary ethical mission — "to help people" — rather than as an element of state policy. Typical quotations from programme participants in both regions are telling: "My husband and I are both doctors, we have a young child. And we wanted to combine the pleasant with the useful — to help people who need medical care here";[46] "Zemsky Teacher is not about money, although the support matters. It is about the opportunity to change someone's life";[47] "What is frightening is failing to help, in case, God forbid, a person dies. But helping is normal."[48] This vocabulary — "calling", "mission", "help", "unity" — is reproduced in media coverage from both regions regardless of the sector.

Reports about individual programme participants perform three communicative functions simultaneously: for audiences in Russia — proof of the "normalisation" of the new regions; for prospective programme participants — recruitment material with a human face; for residents of the occupied territories — a normalising signal that the arrival of people from the metropolitan centre is natural and positive. The fact that a teacher from Saratov or Pskov oblast uses the formula "Russia's new regions" as natural conversational language, whilst a doctor from Dagestan speaks of "traditional values of mutual assistance and unity", is evidence of a widespread internalised ideological framework.

3. "They Were Always Ours": Historical Right as the Legitimisation of Demographic Engineering

The "restoration of justice" narrative differs from the preceding ones in its temporal structure and operational logic. Whereas "rebuilding" appeals to the future and the "humanitarian mission" to current needs, "they were always ours" appeals to the past, reframing the very premise of the question of replacement. Its aim is to render the category of "replacement" conceptually impossible: if these lands were always Russian, then the arrival of Russians is not the replacement of locals, but the return of what was "one's own" all along.

A telling example of this narrative is a statement by Dmitry Chernyshev, a representative of the "Public Chamber of the DPR", made in October 2025: "Donbas is the industrial heart of Russia, which has always been filled with a vast number of people", and that "all conditions are being created for the return of displaced persons who consider Donbas their homeland."[49] By articulating the "multinational character" of the region and its "133 peoples", the occupying official constructs an image of a space to which "everyone has always come" and in which, therefore, no replacement can exist — only "return".

This logic is also reproduced through the rhetoric of a "unified cultural space": touring circuits with the route "Donetsk and Luhansk, Belgorod, Kursk" and the formula "17 regions from Kamchatka to Kaliningrad"[50] symbolically dissolve the occupied territories into a pan-Russian space, as though no border between them had ever existed.

Most significant is the transposition of this narrative from the rhetorical register into the legal one — through the voluntary resettlement programme for "compatriots", extended to residents of the occupied territories by presidential decree.[51] Inclusion is effected through the category of "historical territories" (the lands of the former USSR and the Russian Empire), with participants themselves exempted from the language test and guaranteed support with housing and employment. The official positioning of the programme as a "return to the Motherland" is the legal entrenchment of the thesis that these lands "were always Russian": this transforms the narrative from a propagandistic assertion into a norm of federal legislation.

Testimony from residents themselves reveals how this narrative is experienced from the inside — as the loss of home. In the Telegram chat "Mariupol IS OURS", a telling exchange between residents was recorded: "I feel very sad, Mariupol is empty." — "In what sense empty?" — "More like foreign. Some people are no longer alive, some have left for good, many have arrived for the construction work, of various nationalities… That is how I would put it."[52] These testimonies are opposite to the official narrative: whilst the occupying discourse constructs Donbas as "always open" and "always Russian", residents themselves describe their own city as having become foreign — and precisely because it has filled with strangers.

Conclusion

The propagandistic infrastructure accompanying the demographic changes in occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts functions as a unified architecture of information cover operating on three complementary levels. "Reconstruction" recodes the symbolic space under the guise of rebuilding. The "humanitarian mission" neutralises the agency of replacement by substituting the subject: it is not the state that is conducting demographic engineering, but "specialists who voluntarily help". "They were always ours" pre-emptively forecloses the very category of criticism — before it has even been formulated.

Common to both regions is the fact that none of these narratives is purely fictitious: construction does take place, the personnel deficit is real, and cultural ties between the regions did exist. It is precisely this partial correspondence with reality that makes the narratives effective. Their manipulative function lies not in fabrication, but in selectivity: they describe part of the process whilst carefully concealing its structural logic.

4. Social Problems and Conflicts

The personnel and demographic mechanisms documented in the preceding sections have a direct social effect: in occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, an institutionally entrenched three-tier hierarchy is taking shape, in which access to resources — housing, wages, legal protection, and physical security — is determined not by qualifications or length of service, but by origin and loyalty to the occupying administration. This construction inevitably generates competition between groups holding fundamentally different institutional positions.

The First Tier: Public-Sector Workers and Civil Servants Resettled from the Russian Federation

Public-sector workers and civil servants resettled from Russia receive the maximum package of institutional advantages. Teachers and doctors recruited through the "Zemsky" programmes receive one-off payments of 2 million roubles, reimbursement of relocation costs for all family members, and priority access to the municipal housing stock. Other key instruments reinforcing their presence are preferential mortgage lending and access to newly built housing — a mechanism that enables the formation of a socially managed population loyal to Moscow.

A significant detail concerns the logic of career advancement: as documented in Section 1, the three prime ministers of the "DPR" after 2022 — Khotsenko, Solntsev, Chertkov — served in the post for between nine months and two years before departing as governors of Russian oblasts. Donetsk and Luhansk function as a temporary "official posting" within the career vertical of the metropolitan centre. Civilian specialists who arrive frequently replicate the same logic: they are oriented towards the media and social space of the Russian Federation, live within their own circles, and demonstrate a low level of awareness of everyday life on the occupied territories.

Within the first tier, an internal hierarchy of its own exists. The security apparatus — military personnel and associated structures, primarily those originating from the Caucasus and Chechnya — occupies a higher position than civilian "Zemsky" specialists. In comments on publications about conflict incidents in Horlivka, a direct verbalisation of this hierarchy has been recorded: "These are Chechens, they are real citizens of Russia, then come second-class citizens — people with Russian Federation passports, and then you — a third-class citizen of the 'DeNeR'."[53]

The Second Tier: Local Public-Sector Workers Who Have Passed Loyalty Screening

Residents who have remained and obtained a Russian passport retain access to employment in the public sector, but their situation differs fundamentally from that of the resettlers. The average teacher's salary in the "DPR" as of April 2025 stands at 55,641 roubles — with no "resettlement" supplements of the kind available to those who arrived from Russia under the "Zemsky" programmes.[54] In other words, two people in the same post, in the same school, receive fundamentally different terms — depending on where they came from. In occupied Luhansk oblast, local construction workers describe the attitude of management from Russian companies as condescending;[55] local residents contend with ageing infrastructure, a shortage of doctors in hospitals, and the latest round of cosmetic "restoration" aimed at producing a media image rather than achieving any genuine improvement.

The contrast in access to physical security is equally telling. According to the resistance movement "Yellow Ribbon", in Donetsk, Zhdanivka, Starobilsk, and Svatove, local residents have been denied access to the bomb shelters at schools and medical facilities, which are reserved exclusively for military use.[56] In conditions of regular artillery shelling, the difference in access to shelters is a matter of physical survival, not an administrative detail.

The Third Tier: Labour Migrants

The lowest level of the hierarchy is occupied by labour migrants — predominantly from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, as well as approximately 150 North Korean workers sent to Donbas under bilateral agreements between Moscow and Pyongyang.[57] They carry out the most dangerous and lowest-paid work in an active combat zone, whilst remaining outside any meaningful legal protection. In occupied Luhansk oblast, regular "crackdowns on illegal migrants" are conducted — including as part of the "Illegal-2025" operation of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, during which 135 individuals were checked and 64 violations of migration legislation identified.[58]

At the same time, within Russia itself, the mass importation of Indian welders, tailors, carpenters, and reinforcement workers has been documented — employers have publicly stated their readiness to "take on an unlimited number" of foreign specialists.[59] For local residents, the presence of this tier generates a possible expectation: available personnel vacancies will be filled through the external mobilisation of labour, rather than through any improvement in conditions for those already living on the occupied territories.

The occupying administration of the "DPR" actively promotes a narrative of "growing prosperity", drawing on average wage statistics: 41,238 roubles in 2023, 52,327 in 2024, and 60,627 roubles in the first half of 2025 — "growth of almost 26% over nine months."[60] These figures are statistically accurate but methodologically dishonest: the arithmetic mean between a soldier's payment of 200,000 roubles and a nursery worker's salary of 30,000 roubles produces an "average" of 115,000 that corresponds to the reality of neither group. The response of residents in open digital spaces records precisely this methodological gap: "If one person eats meat and another eats cabbage, on average they both ate stuffed cabbage rolls"; "I don't come close to the average wage"; "ordinary people are getting poorer and poorer… it's getting harder and harder to cover basic needs."[61] Such testimonies reflect the systemic contradiction between the narrative of "economic revival" and the everyday experience of local residents.

The Hierarchy as a Generator of Conflict[62]

The structure described directly gives rise to conflicts that are being recorded in both regions with increasing frequency. The defining characteristic of these conflicts is the systemic impunity enjoyed by representatives of the higher tiers of the hierarchy.

In occupied Donetsk oblast, a whole spectrum of incidents has been documented. In Mariupol, a group of individuals of "Caucasian appearance" attacked a teenager and threatened his family, declaring that "this is their land now" — the police recorded the complaint but provided no actual protection.[63] In Makiivka, a resident described a man driving at high speed through a residential area who, when challenged by passers-by, threatened them by invoking the "military commandant's office".[64] Such incidents are becoming regular, generating a sense of complete rightlessness. In Horlivka, a series of flat break-ins has been accompanied by the appearance of handmade signs reading "we live here" on doors — an attempt to physically mark one's presence and prevent seizure.[65] This adaptive practice is an indicator of the level of anxiety: in conditions where the legal protection of property is not guaranteed, residents resort to physical marking as an instrument of self-defence.

In Luhansk oblast, telling incidents include one in Kadiivka, where a mass brawl involving men of Caucasian origin ended without any response from the "police",[66] and one at a swimming pool in Luhansk, where a fighter of Chechen origin openly threatened local residents: "I'll show the Lugandons what 'Akhmat' is."[67]

Conflicts are also frequently connected to resources: locals complain of condescending treatment from incoming managers at construction sites, competition for social infrastructure, and alienation from decision-making processes. The social distinctions between locals and incomers are deepened by the cultural isolation of the latter: resettled Russians live within their own information and social circles, which precludes any organic integration whilst simultaneously entrenching hierarchical distancing.

A separate and thoroughly documented dimension of conflict is the housing question. The occupying administration has created a legal mechanism for the mass redistribution of property through the category of "ownerless property". According to OHCHR data, in Mariupol alone between December 2024 and June 2025, more than 12,191 flats were added to the list of potentially "abandoned" properties; across the occupied regions, at least 29,697 properties have been documented, with the largest share (approximately 18,000) falling in Donetsk oblast.[68] The then prime minister of the "DPR", Solntsev, confirmed in 2024 a figure of 30,000 "ownerless properties" across the republic.[69]

The confiscation mechanism is a generator of resource conflict, since it directly links the dispossession of local owners to the provision of housing for new residents. In 2025, Pushilin publicly proposed resettling medical workers in flats that would pass into the municipal fund through court proceedings.[70] In other words, the occupying administration itself confirmed that the housing of resettlers is being carried out at the expense of confiscated local property, rather than through the construction of new social housing. Mortgage-financed construction on the sites of demolished Mariupol tower blocks is also being actively used to attract buyers from Russia, transforming the property market into yet another channel of demographic replacement: residents record that flats in new developments are being bought up predominantly by residents of Moscow, St Petersburg, and Krasnodar Krai — often several at a time — and then rented out to Mariupol residents left without their own housing.[71] "The building with the clock tower — a Muscovite bought four flats at once," one message records. This model — the purchase of property followed by its rental back to the former residents — is a mechanism of colonial rent extraction.

Conclusion

The body of documented testimony from both regions allows the formation of an institutionally entrenched social hierarchy to be established as a direct and foreseeable consequence of personnel and demographic engineering. This hierarchy is not uniform: within the "privileged" resettlers from the Russian Federation, an internal gradation of its own exists — the security apparatus holds a higher status than civilian "Zemsky" specialists — whilst local residents are divided between the "accepted" (passportised and loyal) and those stripped of any institutional guarantees whatsoever.

The legal mechanism of "ownerless property", the differentiated access to bomb shelters, the asymmetry of resettlement payments, and the systemic impunity for violations committed by incomers are not isolated malfunctions, but interconnected elements of a single system that structurally displaces the local population even from the limited positions that still remain available to it. Colonising policy is implemented not through direct expulsion, but through the organisation of inequality that renders the population of the occupied territories socially dependent and gradually stripped of any mechanisms for independently influencing their own lives. The Mariupol City Council in exile characterises this directly: "the housing question is being used by the occupying authorities as an instrument for changing the demographic composition of the city's population."

5. Trends and Long-Term Consequences

The four preceding sections have documented interconnected processes that together form a single system: the replacement of local officials by Russian appointees, the resettlement of public-sector workers through targeted programmes, the propagandistic cover for these changes, and the formation of a new social hierarchy. Each of these mechanisms in isolation might be considered a situational response to a crisis. Examined in their totality, they form an architecture that methodically eliminates the institutional, personnel, and demographic foundations for any form of local identity or self-governance. Considered in a long-term perspective, this is a strategic demographic investment.

What makes these changes particularly durable is their normative entrenchment. The constitutional architecture of the "DPR" and "LPR" after 2022 legally forecloses any local influence over the personnel composition of the authorities: the Federal Constitutional Laws of October 2022 and the new constitutions of the "republics" together form a normative vertical in which local representation is purely decorative.

The "Zemsky" programmes have been extended to 2030 with growing funding, transforming them from temporary crisis measures into elements of a long-term personnel architecture. The legal mechanism of "ownerless property" provides the material basis for the resettlement of incomers at the expense of confiscated assets belonging to local residents.

The demographic situation is the reverse side of this same system — and it is telling that its catastrophic parameters are recorded in the occupying authorities' own documents. The official "Forecast of Socio-Economic Development of the Donetsk Urban District" records that the permanent population stood at 614,800 in 2023 and 604,700 in 2024, meaning an outflow of 1.6% in a single year.[72] The same document contains a contradictory alternative figure of 717,000 persons as of mid-2025 — whilst acknowledging that data on natural population movement and migration are not "received" by the administration, and that "automated processing of migration data is temporarily not being carried out".

In Mariupol, the picture is even more thoroughly documented: the birth rate has been declining for three consecutive years — from 1,216 births in 2023 to 1,101 in 2025, which is 60% below the pre-war figure.[73] The occupying administration's own development forecast for Mariupol characterises the demographic situation as "unsatisfactory", records "a natural decline in population due to low birth rates and high mortality", and notes that the number of people actually employed in the city does not exceed 60,000 — whilst simultaneously projecting population growth to 400,000 by 2028.[74] For context: in peacetime Ukrainian Mariupol in 2021, the population stood at approximately 430,000. This is an official acknowledgement of demographic and labour collapse.

In occupied Luhansk oblast, the same dynamic is at work: a contraction in the share of the local population through departure, losses, and deportations, whilst the "new" population — public-sector workers, security personnel, employees of state projects — is integrated into the Russian economic and administrative space and constitutes a socially more active group. Russia does not necessarily need to displace all locals — it is sufficient to create a demographic balance in which locals lose their critical mass and the newly arrived become the dominant social and political force.

The response to demographic collapse is not the restoration of the local community, but its controlled replacement. This is confirmed by official strategic documents. Development plans for the occupied regions, drawn up by Russia’s Unified Institute of Spatial Planning in March 2026, envisage an increase in their combined population of 113,800 persons by 2045 through new industrial parks, defence industry technology parks, and approximately 40,000 new jobs.[75] This figure amounts to less than a third of the documented population outflow from Mariupol alone. In other words, even under the maximum federal scenario, new resettlers will not compensate for the scale of demographic collapse — they fill only that portion of it which is advantageous from the standpoint of loyalty.

The infrastructural scale of the plans is unprecedented: more than 3,270 km of roads, 430 km of railway lines and 19 stations, the reconstruction of four aerodromes, 25 industrial parks, 8 engineering enterprises, and 15 building materials factories. In the social sphere — more than 13 million square metres of new housing, more than 140 nurseries, dozens of schools, and 117 outpatient clinics and polyclinics. It is telling that the new social infrastructure is being built not to bring back or retain the local population, but to receive new residents from the metropolitan centre.

Tourism constitutes a separate channel of "soft colonisation". Plans for 9.4 million tourists annually on the occupied territories create a mechanism of gradual conversion: the temporary presence of Russian Federation citizens is progressively transformed into a permanent one through business, services, and property acquisition. The transformation of Azovstal into a post-industrial park with tourist and cultural zones, publicly announced by Pushilin,[76] is part of the same logic: a site where thousands of civilians perished and where the last organised armed resistance held out is recast in the Russian interpretation as a tourist attraction — a symbolic recoding of space designed to normalise the metropolitan presence.

The long-term consequence of the system described is not only demographic transformation, but systemic social instability. As detailed in Section 4, in both occupied territories the frequency of conflicts between local residents and representatives of various groups of resettlers — above all security forces — is increasing. The presence of armed formations and individuals from other regions of Russia does not integrate into the local environment, but forms hierarchies. In such a structure, conflicts arise not only between "locals and incomers", but within the local population itself — between those who have adapted to the new system and those who remain excluded. Such incidents accumulate and create an environment of persistent tension in which any everyday episode may rapidly escalate into open confrontation.

CONCLUSION

Ethnic replacement in the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts is not a side effect of armed conflict, but a key instrument of neo-colonisation — a systematic reconstruction of the composition of the population and governing elites, in which loyalty to the centre becomes the defining criterion of access to power, resources, and opportunity.

The analysis of the "governmental" structures demonstrates a logic classic to neo-colonial practice: initially the appearance of local self-governance is preserved — in 2014, locals constituted 74% of the "DPR" government and 93% of the "LPR" government — but strategic positions are gradually occupied by appointees from the metropolitan centre. By 2026, the share of Russians in the executive authority of the "DPR" had reached 48% and of the "LPR" 35%, and the heads of both governments are natives of Russia with no connection whatsoever to Donbas. This transition is not spontaneous: it is secured by a constitutional vertical that legally forecloses local influence over personnel composition, by presidential personnel programmes, and by a rotation model in which the occupied periphery serves as a springboard for career advancement in the metropolitan centre. Such a model creates institutional dependency and renders autonomous local decision-making impossible.

The "Zemsky" programmes, with contracts extending to 2030, are systematically replacing teaching, medical, and cultural personnel with carriers of the Russian institutional norm. The planned population growth drawn from Russian Federation citizens, enshrined in master plans extending to 2045, means that demographic transformation is being built in advance as a component of state policy. In the neo-colonial context, this corresponds to the practice of settling the periphery with a population integrated into the metropolitan system, ensuring long-term loyalty and control.

Propaganda in this case performs a system-forming function: the three complementary narratives — "reconstruction", "humanitarian mission", "they were always ours" — present resettlement as "assistance" and "fraternal support", pre-emptively foreclosing the very category of criticism before it has been formulated.

The social structure taking shape as a result of these processes also bears pronounced neo-colonial characteristics. The privileged position of incomers, the limited opportunities available to locals, and the use of cheap migrant labour create a hierarchy in which access to resources is determined by proximity to the metropolitan centre. The ethnic and social conflicts recorded in both regions are a direct consequence of this model: different groups of the population are incorporated into the system on unequal terms and share no common rules of interaction.

Russia does not necessarily seek to displace the entire local population — it is sufficient to achieve a demographic balance in which locals lose their critical mass and the newly arrived become the dominant social and political force. This is precisely why the process is slow, but structurally irreversible: every five-year contract, every confiscated flat, every official appointed from Russia deepens a dependency that will outlast any temporary political settlement.

Appendix

APPENDIX 1: GOVERNMENT OF THE "DPR", 2014

APPENDIX 2: GOVERNMENT OF THE "DPR", 2018 (SECOND ANANCHENKO GOVERNMENT)

APPENDIX 3: CURRENT COMPOSITION OF THE "DPR" GOVERNMENT (2026)[77]

APPENDIX 4: GOVERNMENT OF THE "LPR", 2014

APPENDIX 5: GOVERNMENT OF THE "LPR", 2018

APPENDIX 6: CURRENT COMPOSITION OF THE "LPR" GOVERNMENT (2026)