Russia has illegally drafted 46 thousand Ukrainians in the temporarily occupied territories, most of them in Crimea
From February 2022 to July 2025, Russia forcibly mobilized 46,327 Ukrainians in the temporarily occupied territories; 40,640 of those were mobilized in the temporarily occupied Crimea.
Dmytro UsovDmytro Usov, Secretary of the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, revealed these data during the Third International Conference “Crimea Global. Understanding Ukraine through the South,” as reported by ZMINA.
He stressed that this means that Ukrainian citizens are currently fighting against Ukraine.
According to his data, Russian occupying authorities illegally mobilized 5,368 Ukrainians in the occupied Donetsk Oblast, 4,650 in the Luhansk region, 560 in the Zaporizhzhia region, and 478 in the Kherson region. Additionally, 35,272 individuals were mobilized in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, and 5,368 in Sevastopol.
Usov emphasized that Ukrainian military intelligence provided the information to the Coordination Headquarters, and Russia confirmed it.
He also reported that 16% of the POW currently held in Ukrainian prisoner-of-war camps are Ukrainian citizens, with 6% of those being Crimean residents.
Usov clarified that legislative changes are planned for submission to the Verkhovna Rada, which would stipulate that Ukrainians from temporarily occupied territories who are exchanged with Russians will not be returned to the Russian Federation.
“The exchange of Ukrainians for Ukrainians is taking place. We must do everything to ensure they do not return to the Russian Federation but remain in Ukraine,” the Coordination Headquarters representative noted.
He added that Ukrainian courts have already issued acquittal verdicts regarding some Ukrainians held in custody on Ukrainian territory.
Previously, ZMINA reported that in the occupied Luhansk region, men of conscription age who receive an electronic summons and fail to appear at the local “military commissariat” within 20 days are temporarily deprived of their driver’s licenses on the same day.
