The Moscow parliament has approved a bill that effectively allows the Russian authorities to nationalize the homes of millions of Ukrainians in the territories occupied by its armed forces.

The draft law was adopted on Tuesday by the lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, and published on its website.

The draft law was proposed at the end of September by the Minister of Construction of Russia, Irek Faizullin, in the draft of which it is stipulated that the authorities of the “subjects” of Russia have the right to receive and use “unclaimed residential premises” to provide housing queues.

“A draft law is being introduced, which establishes the right of subjects, based on the decision of a senior official, to accept and use residential premises unclaimed by citizens to provide housing for citizens to whom the state has obligations,” said Faizullin at the government. meeting in Moscow on July 28.

He noted that nationalized housing will primarily be provided to war veterans, family members of deceased veterans, disabled people and their families, victims of accidents and natural disasters, and other socially vulnerable categories of the population.

“Well, there are obligations to the military and the disabled. It will be easier to do this by decision of the heads of subjects of the Russian Federation,” Prime Minister Mykhailo Mishustin confirmed at the same government meeting.

How Russia was preparing the nationalization of Ukrainian homes

In essence, the draft law allows the Russian authorities to expropriate the homes of Ukrainians who fled the war in the occupied territories without compensation. According to Moscow, the occupied Ukrainian territories of Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions officially became “subjects” of Russia after their annexation was announced at the end of September.

Formally, the Russian parliament fast-tracked the bill after Putin announced it on September 30, it was passed in just a few days and reached the Kremlin leader’s desk on October 5, when he signed it.

As for the regulatory act on the “use of unclaimed residential premises”, it was submitted to the Russian parliament in August.

Andriy Klishas, ​​chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Legislation of the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, was the first official in Moscow to speak openly about the true purpose of the legislative project.

“We need a clear legal framework for seizing foreign property, especially Ukrainian property, in Russia and in the liberated territories of Ukraine. This issue should be discussed in detail with the government in the fall,” he wrote on August 8 in his Telegram channel.

How the Russian press presents the news about the adoption of the law

However, the Russian press almost completely avoided writings about the fact that the draft law would allow the nationalization of the housing of Ukrainians in the occupied territories. Here’s how Lenta, one of Russia’s most popular news sites, announced its adoption today:

“First of all, we are talking about apartments that were purchased for the military, but turned out to be unclaimed due to their discharge from service, death, refusal of housing or moving to a new place of residence.”

Lenta journalists add:

“The regional authorities spent money on the maintenance of such ownerless apartments, but could not hand them over to those in need, as the legislation did not have the appropriate norms. Now the legislative vacuum has been eliminated, and the regional administration can transfer unclaimed housing to veterans of the Great Patriotic War, family members of the dead and disabled of the Great Patriotic War, victims of radiation accidents and their liquidators, disabled people (…)”.

“According to experts, the new law will help relieve the burden on the regions of maintaining “rejected” apartments and will contribute to more effective management of the housing stock,” the Russian news site concludes.

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