You're reading: Russia bans Ukrainians from owning land in annexed Crimea

Russian occupation authorities have banned foreign citizens – mostly Ukrainians – from owning land in Ukraine’s Russian-annexed Crimea.

On March 20, 2020, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin signed a decree banning foreigners from possessing land in most districts of Crimea due to the fact that they are considered “borderlands.” These include Yevpatoria, Kerch, Yalta, Sudak and Sevastopol — some of the biggest cities in Crimea.

Under the decree, the lands were supposed to be transferred from foreigners to Russian citizens within a year, and this term expired on March 20, 2021.

Lands in Simferopol, Dzhankoi, Krasnoperekopsk, as well as in the Bilohirske, Krasnogvardeisk and Pervomaisk districts are not subject to the ban.

If land plots had not been transferred by the March 20, 2021 deadline, they will be mandatorily sold by judges appointed by Russian occupation authorities.

Since Russia illegally invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014, it has encouraged the peninsula’s residents to obtain Russian citizenship and made it harder for them to remain Ukrainian citizens.

“The ban on owning land in most districts of Crimea is in line with the Russian policy of repression, discrimination and expulsion of Ukrainian citizens from the temporarily occupied peninsula,” Oleh Nikolayenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry, told the Ukrainska Pravda online newspaper. “The decree is legally null and void and will not have any legal consequences for Ukraine. After our country restores sovereignty over Crimea, the rights of lawful owners to land plots that were violated will be restored.”