Russia has begun transferring privately owned farmland in the occupied Luhansk region to Russian state hands, the Ukrainian National Resistance Center claims, according to an article by UNN, cited by Portfolio.
According to Ukrainians, the Russian authorities are now, within the framework of a complicated legal process, first officially classifying the Luhansk farmland as “abandoned” and then transferring it to the Russian state.
According to Ukraine, Russian occupiers are simply stealing the property of Ukrainian people who have fled the war.
According to Ukraine’s report, “They are working to permanently dispossess people fleeing war, and the forced displacement is essentially a form of land grabbing disguised as legal.”
Ukraine has long been one of Europe’s strongest agricultural economies, but much of the fighting is taking place on land where the country’s agricultural activities took place. Donetsk Oblast and Luhansk Oblast make up Donbas, a territory largely occupied now by Russia and which U.S. President Trump has asked Ukraine to give up.
Luhansk Oblast is considered particularly good farmland, but the region underwent significant industrialization during Soviet times, and since 2014, a lot of bombs, mines, ammunition and contamination have been deposited in the soil.
