Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine


The Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine are areas of southern and eastern Ukraine that are controlled by Russia as a result of the Russo-Ukrainian War and the ongoing invasion. In Ukrainian law, they are defined as the "temporarily occupied territories". As of 2024, Russia occupies almost 20% of Ukraine and about 3 to 3.5 million Ukrainians are estimated to be living under occupation; since the invasion, the occupied territories lost roughly half of their population. The United Nations Human Rights Office reports that Russia is committing severe human rights violations in occupied Ukraine, including arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture, crackdown on peaceful protest and freedom of speech, enforced Russification, passportization, indoctrination of children, and suppression of Ukrainian language and culture.
The occupation began in 2014 with Russia's invasion and annexation of Crimea, and its de facto takeover of Ukraine's Donbas during a war in eastern Ukraine. In 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion. However, due to fierce Ukrainian resistance and logistical challenges, the Russian Armed Forces retreated from northern Ukraine in early April. In September 2022, Ukrainian forces launched the Kharkiv counteroffensive and liberated most of that oblast. Another southern counteroffensive resulted in the liberation of Kherson that November.
On 30 September 2022, Russia announced the annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts, despite only occupying part of the claimed territory. The UN General Assembly passed a resolution rejecting this annexation as illegal and upholding Ukraine's right to territorial integrity.
As of 2024, Ukraine's peace terms call for Russian forces to leave the occupied territories. Russia's terms call for it to keep all the land it occupies, and be given all of the oblasts that it claims but does not fully control. Several Western-based analysts say that allowing Russia to keep the land it seized would "reward the aggressor while punishing the victim" and encourage further Russian expansionism.

Background

With the Euromaidan and Revolution of Dignity since November 2013, popular protests across Ukraine led to the dismissal of pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych by the Verkhovna Rada, as he fled to Russia. The growing pro-European sentiment at the center of this period of upheaval caused unease in the Kremlin, and Russian president Vladimir Putin immediately mobilized Russian army and airborne forces to invade Crimea, and they swiftly took control of major government buildings and blockaded the Ukrainian military in their bases across the peninsula. Soon after, Russian-installed officials announced and carried out a referendum for the region to join Russia, which western and independent organizations labeled as illegitimate. The Kremlin rejected these claims and soon officially annexed Crimea into Russia, with western nations issuing sanctions against Russia in response. In addition, with pro-Russian counter-protests across Eastern and Southern Ukraine in response to the ousting of Yanukovych, Russia allegedly supported Russian and pro-Russian militant separatists in the Donbas region in taking control of major government buildings. These separatists eventually created the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, and have since been at conflict with the now-pro-European Ukrainian government, known as the war in Donbas.
In response to Russian military intervention, the Parliament of Ukraine adopted government laws to qualify the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions as temporarily occupied and uncontrolled territories:
  1. Autonomous Republic of Crimea:
  2. * Law of Ukraine No. 1207-VII "Assurance of Citizens' Rights and Freedom, and Legal Regulations on Temporarily Occupied Territory of Ukraine".
  3. Separate Raions of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts:
  4. * Order of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 1085-р "A List of Settlements on Territory Temporarily Uncontrolled by Government Authorities, and a List of Landmarks Located at the Contact Line".
  5. * Law of Ukraine No. 254-19-VIII "On Recognition of Separate Raions, Cities, Towns and Villages in Donetsk and Luhansk Regions as Temporarily Occupied Territories".
Petro Poroshenko, one of the opposition leaders during Euromaidan, won a landslide victory in the election to succeed interim president Turchynov, three months after the ousting of Yanukovych.

Current overview

Timeline

The following chart summarizes some estimates of the total area of Ukrainian territory under Russian control, presented by various publishers at different instances during the conflict. Note that some of the estimates from the end of 2022 were conflicting.
DatePercentage of
Ukrainian territory		Area
km2 		Source
Petro Poroshenko, U.N.
CIA World Factbook
CNN
CNN
CNN
CNN
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
CNN
CNN
CNN
CNN
NY Times
Belfer center
≈
NY Times
≈
Belfer Center
≈Belfer Center

Before February 2022

Since Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014, it administers the peninsula under two federal subjects: the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol. Ukraine continues to claim the peninsula as an integral part of its territory, which is supported by most foreign governments through the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 68/262, even though Russia and some other UN member states have expressed support for the 2014 Crimean referendum, implying recognition of Crimea as part of the Russian Federation. In 2015, the Ukrainian parliament officially set 20 February 2014 as the date of "the beginning of the temporary occupation of Crimea and Sevastopol by Russia".
The uncontrolled portions of the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts are commonly abbreviated as "ORDLO" from Ukrainian, especially among Ukrainian news media. The term first appeared in Law of Ukraine No.1680-VII. Documents of the Minsk Protocol and the OSCE refer to them as "certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions" of Ukraine.
The Ministry of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories is the Ukrainian government ministry that oversees government policy towards the regions., the government considered 7% of Ukraine's territory to be under occupation. The United Nations General Assembly resolution 73/194, adopted on 17 December 2018, designated Crimea as under "temporary occupation".
The Ukrainian army was concerned in 2019 about the deployment of 3M-54 Kalibr cruise missiles on Russian naval and coast guard vessels operating in the Sea of Azov, which is adjacent to the temporarily occupied territories. As a result, Mariupol and Berdiansk, two main Pryazovian seaports, suffer from an increase in insecurity.
Temryuk and Taganrog, two other ports on the Sea of Azov, have allegedly been used to disguise the provenance of anthracite coal and liquefied natural gas from the temporarily occupied territories.

Territories affected

Since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2014, the Government of Ukraine is issuing up-to-date "List of Temporarily Occupied Regions and Settlements" and a "List of Landmarks Bordering the Anti-Terrorist Operation Zone". As of 16 September 2020, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has made four updates to order no. 1085-р and law no. 254-VIII:
  • Addendum No. 128-р as of 18 February 2015
  • Addendum No. 428-р as of 5 May 2015
  • Addendum No. 1276-р as of 2 December 2015
  • Addendum No. 79-р as of 7 February 2018
  • Addendum No. 410-р as of 13 June 2018
  • Addendum No. 505-р as of 5 July 2019
  • Addendum No. 1125-р as of 16 September 2020
Some settlements' names are the result of 2016 Decommunization in Ukraine.
The list below is based on the extension as of 7 February 2018. The borders of some raions have changed since 2015.