IFS Insights: A State-Engineered Architecture of Persecution
Russia’s Systematic Campaign Against Ukrainian Civilians in Occupied Territories.
Since the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been subjected to a systematic campaign of repression within Russian-occupied territories and, following deportation, inside Russia itself.
Drawing on extensive documentation by international human rights bodies, this Insight analyses the interlocking mechanisms through which Russian authorities have persecuted the civilian population: pre-invasion surveillance and blacklisting; arbitrary arrest and detention; enforced disap-pearance; deportation and forcible transfer; torture and sexual violence; and illegal imprisonment through fabricated judicial proceedings.
Rather than treating these acts as isolated abuses, the Insight argues that they constitute a single, state-directed apparatus of persecution whose purpose is the elimination of Ukrainian civic identity from occupied territory.
The systematic and widespread nature of these practices, their institutional orchestration, and the deliberate suppression of accountability mechanisms are examined in turn. The Insight finds that the pattern of repression originated in Crimea in 2014 and was subsequently scaled up following 2022, representing a deliberate policy meeting the threshold requirements for crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
