Russia is pouring billions into roads, railways, ports and resource projects in occupied parts of eastern and southern Ukraine, deepening its control over seized territory and complicating prospects for any future settlement.
The infrastructure drive is helping Moscow move troops, equipment and commodities while binding the occupied areas ever more tightly to Russia’s economy and transport network. According to a Reuters report, the scale and long-term nature of the investment suggest the Kremlin has no intention of returning the territories to Ukraine.
Roads, railways and ports reshape occupied territory
The investment campaign spans the occupied parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, as well as adjacent Russian territory. Reuters, citing satellite imagery, official Russian tender documents, export and freight data, public statements and interviews with more than three dozen Ukrainian officials and former residents, found that more than 2,500 kilometers of railways, highways and roads were newly built, repaired or upgraded between 2022 and 2025.
Among the flagship projects is the so-called Novorossiya Railways system, including a planned 525-kilometer route launched in 2023 to link the occupied parts. A newly laid 60-kilometer section between Novoselivka and Kolosky in Donetsk region, north of Mariupol, was identified using satellite imagery taken between July 2023 and November 2025.
A separate road project, the Novorossiya Highway, forms part of a larger 1,400-kilometer “Azov Ring” intended to connect southern Russia with occupied Ukrainian regions and Crimea. Russian officials say the broader route is to be completed by 2030.
The projects are not only economic. Vadym Skibitskyi, deputy chief of Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence agency, said transport infrastructure is central to sustaining Russia’s war effort.
“The most critical consideration for the Russians is infrastructure. It is the transport infrastructure,” he said.
Kremlin spending dwarfs other Russian regional programs
According to the report, Russia allocated about $11.8 billion in federal funds to the four occupied Ukrainian regions between 2024 and 2026 under priority national development programs. That figure is nearly three times the combined amount allocated to about 20 other Russian federal regions in similar programs.
President Vladimir Putin has openly presented the occupied territories as “Novorossiya” – “New Russia” – a term rooted in the imperial Russian past and embraced by modern nationalists. In a speech marking the anniversary of what Moscow calls the regions’ “reunification” with Russia, Putin described the program as a revival of “our ancestral, historical Russian lands.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters that the four occupied territories are “subjects of Russia” and “an integral part of the Russian Federation,” adding that this is “written in the constitution of the country.”
For Kyiv and its European allies, the spending is a stark signal that Moscow is treating occupation as permanent. Karolina Hird of the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said the scale of the investment shows Russia is not preparing to hand the territory back.
“The way Russia’s investing very heavily in industry and the economy in occupied Ukraine, so it can reap profits off of the occupation, also financially entangles Ukraine into Russia,” she said.
Mariupol and Berdiansk ports reopen under Russian control
Russia has also moved to revive occupied Ukrainian ports on the Sea of Azov. Mariupol and Berdiansk were added in August to Russia’s public list of ports open to international vessels, a step denounced by Kyiv.
Dredging and channel-deepening projects are under way to allow larger ships to return, with tenders worth more than $13 million posted on Russia’s state procurement website since 2023.
Satellite imagery from Mariupol showed a large new facility at the docks and what appeared to be a growing coal stockpile prepared for export. Two veteran dock workers in Mariupol described the port as becoming noticeably busier in recent months, with vessels carrying grain and coal, though activity remains below pre-war levels.
Vessel-tracking data showed that between July and November last year, 18 cargo vessels operated by Russian and foreign companies departed Mariupol and Berdiansk, most bound for Turkish ports. Reuters said it could not determine what each vessel carried. In 2024, by contrast, no ships entered or left the two ports, according to the same data.
Russian customs data also showed that between March 2022 and March 2025, at least 508,500 metric tons of coal, coke and anthracite worth $13.2 million were exported from occupied regions. The main buyers were trading firms in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, with shipments also going to India, Indonesia, Egypt and Algeria.
Natural resources and auctions turn occupation into profit
Beyond logistics and ports, Moscow is using state auctions to transfer control of Ukrainian natural resources to Russian companies. Reuters reviewed public auction documents showing dozens of assets – including mines, quarries and farmland – being offered for sale online.
Among the most significant deals was the Bobrykivske gold deposit in occupied Luhansk region. Rights to develop the mine were sold for $9.7 million to Alchevskpromgroup, controlled by Russian mining company Polyanka. Auction documents disclose the deposit contains about 1.64 tons of gold, worth nearly $260 million at current spot prices.
Karolina Hird, a national security fellow at the Institute for the Study of War, said that while occupation is costly, Russia’s ability to exploit industrial and natural assets in the seized regions could eventually shift the economic balance.
“That can start tipping the scale to the point where the occupation actually becomes profitable to Russia,” she said.
Crimea model, but faster
Ukrainian officials say the Kremlin is following a pattern established after the 2014 annexation of Crimea – but on a much faster timetable.
Olha Kuryshko, Ukraine’s presidential representative for Crimea, explained that Russia has accomplished in three years in the newly occupied territories what it took roughly a decade to build in Crimea.
“They’ve carried it out so rapidly, spent so much money, taken everything up a notch from what they did in Crimea,” she said. “Crimea was their training ground.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky, asked by Reuters about Russia’s infrastructure buildout, dismissed it as a militarized façade rather than genuine development for residents.
“It doesn’t look like some modern resort,” he said of Crimea. “It’s all militarized.”
A challenge for any future peace deal
The development spree comes as Washington continues to push for an end to the war.
But the physical transformation of occupied Ukraine is making the diplomatic landscape more difficult. New routes already allow Russia to move people and goods without relying solely on the Crimean Bridge, long a vulnerable chokepoint for military and trade traffic and a target of repeated Ukrainian strikes.
For Ukrainian officials and analysts, that is the central point: Russia is not merely occupying land – it is redesigning it to serve both the war effort and long-term integration into the Russian state.
The longer that process continues, the harder it may become to reverse.