Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin signed a decree approving the concept of the Russian Federation's state migration policy for 2026-2030, which summarizes migration processes over the past six years and outlines plans for migration to Russia for the next five years. Among them is the influx of people into Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine. Donbas. Realities (a Radio Liberty project) studied this document: here are some interesting facts about the aggressor country itself and what it says about the occupied part of Ukraine.

The concept of the Russian Federation's state migration policy for 2026-2030 notes that in previous years, the number of foreigners coming to Russia for work has increased, particularly from countries with visa requirements. Russian officials expect this trend to continue until 2030. They separately emphasize that the Kremlin's state policy of “preserving and strengthening traditional Russian spiritual and moral values” has become one of the factors stimulating migration to Russia.

At the same time, as stated in the document, Russian migration policy needs to be improved due to new challenges and threats to national security. Among the planned measures are strengthening control over digital services, the use of biometric data, registers of controlled persons, and other surveillance tools.

The concept also provides for the creation of a “favorable regime” for the voluntary resettlement of persons, in particular those who have previously left Russia, provided that they are “able to organically integrate into the system of positive social relations.” The document does not specify what exactly is meant by such “integration.”

The concept signed by Putin does not mention the full-scale war that Russia has been waging against Ukraine since 2022. And this is not a game of definitions (“SVO,” “special operation”) — none of these Russian synonyms for war are mentioned either as a factor that shaped the current demographic and migration situation in the Russian Federation or as a factor that could influence it in the 2026-2030s.

At the same time, the concept mentions the following factors that have influenced migration processes in the Russian Federation:

the recruitment of low-skilled workers by Russian employers;

insufficiently high level of technological development and labor organization in some sectors of the Russian economy;

all comparisons of migration processes are made with the period before COVID-19 and now, rather than before and after 2022;

at the same time, the Russian Federation's state policy of strengthening spiritual values is named as an important factor that allegedly contributed to the migration to Russia of foreign citizens from states that “impose destructive neoliberal ideological attitudes”;

the authors of the concept believe that “the political and economic pressure of some foreign states on the Russian Federation has not had a significant impact on the structure of migration flows in the Russian Federation.”

The Kremlin has recorded an increase in the number of labor migrants from countries that have a visa regime with the Russian Federation.

Thus, the authors of the concept acknowledge the backwardness of Russian industry and other sectors of the economy, which leads to a greater need for low-skilled workers. However, the level of wages for more skilled workers in Russia is insufficient to compete with employers in other countries (add to this the associated risks, which experts highlighted as war, lack of freedom of speech, spy mania, and political persecution in Russia).

However, according to the Kremlin, Russia's traditional values and “spirituality” compensate for these shortcomings. At the same time, the impact of sanctions on migration is dismissed, and war as a factor is ignored.

How should we understand the trend regarding citizens of countries that have a visa regime with the Russian Federation? It is worth noting that a visa to enter Russia is required for citizens of most African countries (except South Africa and Namibia), China, and North Korea. The active recruitment of people from African countries has been observed in Russian UAV manufacturing companies since 2024.

In addition, Russia has recruited thousands of workers from China. Russian analysts attribute this to a shortage of workers in the construction, manufacturing, and technology sectors. As Viktor Lyashok, senior researcher at the Institute for Applied Economic Research of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), commented to the Russian media, this, in turn, is linked to the war in Ukraine and the policy of import substitution.

According to current information, about 800,000 people left Russia in 2022 alone, and there is a shortage of workers in the labor market of the aggressor country caused by creeping mobilization (which is compensated for by foreigners from “visa” countries). This shows how significant the war factor is.

A separate point in the Russian migration policy for 2026-2030 is the influx of people into the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine.

It states that one of the areas of implementation is "creating conditions for the return, including from abroad, of residents of the ‘Donetsk People's Republic’, ‘Luhansk People's Republic’, Zaporizhzhia region, and Kherson region, who left their places of permanent residence during the ‘special military operation.'

(This is the only place in the entire document where the “special military operation” (as the Russian authorities call the war against Ukraine) is mentioned.

A significant outflow of the Donbas population has been observed since the beginning of the war in 2014. Moreover, this process affected not only the occupied and frontline territories. As early as March 2015, a UN report recorded at least 1.4 million forced migrants from Donbas.

As of 2019, the part of the Donetsk region under Ukrainian control had the highest population outflow rate in Ukraine. Obviously, with the start of a full-scale invasion, this trend has intensified significantly. According to data released by the Russian FSB, in February-June 2022 alone, at least 400,000 people left the Russian-occupied part of Donbas for Russia itself, not including other territories occupied by the Russian Federation.

Although Russia has classified a large amount of statistical data by region, open data shows an outflow of population from the occupied territories. According to data from January to November 2023, the migration outflow from the annexed territories (excluding Crimea) to the Russian Federation amounted to at least 80,000 people. On the other side of the front line, there are almost empty territories that were captured after a rapid advancement of the Russian forces in 2022.

Data on the frontline regions controlled by Ukraine vary, but it is clear that the number of people leaving them is growing. After all, with the advance of Russian troops, the front line is also moving. In Pokrovsk alone, according to local authorities, only 1,700 people remained in June 2025, and the evacuation continued. By 2023, almost 22,000 displaced persons alone were registered in this town.

The Kremlin is seeking ways to address this problem. There are few available options, especially given the ongoing active phase of the war, when even the border regions of the Russian Federation come under UAV and missile attacks. Moreover, the largest and most populous urban agglomeration in the occupied part of Ukraine — Donetsk — faces a catastrophic water shortage, with no solution in sight.

Since 2014, the administrations of Russian-controlled territories in Ukraine have understood that one of the key levers of influence over people is their property ownership.

For many displaced persons, the homes they left behind in the occupied cities are their only property, and they have not lost hope of returning.

Russia created conditions under which people did not lose their property, but over time, to keep it, they had to become increasingly integrated into the occupation administration system. In particular, they had to register their property with Rosreestr, obtain local documents and Russian passports.

Starting in 2024, the occupying authorities began sending notices to homeowners in the occupied territories, demanding that they appear at their place of residence and confirm their rights to the property. In October 2025, the Russian Federation began considering a bill according to which residential buildings, apartments, and rooms that “show signs of being unclaimed property” would be recognized as the property of the “republics” and regions or their municipal entities.

The logistics involved in leaving the occupied territories are extremely complicated and dangerous. Long before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the checkpoints along the demarcation line, which had remained a more or less reliable, fast, and inexpensive means of communication, ceased to function. And after February 2022, the only way to leave the occupied territories was through the territory of the Russian Federation and third countries.

In addition to being a difficult and expensive route, people are also checked by the Russian special services. They may be questioned about their connections and relatives in Ukraine, correspondence or photos on their smartphones, and their attitude towards the “SVO”.

At the same time, cities such as Bakhmut, Vuhledar, Popasna, and many other settlements that were captured by the Russian army during fighting are simply uninhabitable.

And although at the end of 2024, a public debate erupted in Ukraine about thousands of people who were forced to return to the occupied and frontline territories, official data does not confirm such numbers.

In addition, the very impossibility of free movement across the front line and the difficulties encountered by people who want to get to/from the occupied territory by detours objectively negate the mass nature of this phenomenon.

The Russian occupation authorities are trying to introduce administrative measures to lure people into the occupied territories, in particular, the obligation to register housing or obtain documents for compensation for destroyed property. However, the Russians themselves do not record a systematic return of people there. Instead, Russia records that 70% of people leaving Donbas are between the ages of 18 and 35.

At the same time, workers from Russian regions are being recruited to the occupied territories. It is questionable whether these people will at least partially cover the population losses and whether they will remain in the occupied territories after the end of their employment contracts. After all, with the prolongation of active hostilities and the parallel deterioration of the infrastructure situation, people will increasingly leave the occupied regions.

The goals set out in the concept of the Russian Federation's state migration policy for 2026-2030 are generally obvious and standard: these include attracting migrants with skills that are in short supply on the labor market and preventing the “territorial isolation” of foreign citizens arriving in the Russian Federation. However, the document continues to cite natural reproduction as the main source of population growth and labor resource renewal in Russia.

Those who, according to the concept, are to come to Russia must meet certain requirements: integration into Russian society, knowledge of the Russian language, respect for culture and rules. Control over them should be strengthened through digital services, biometrics, a register of controlled persons, and other surveillance measures.

However, a separate point of the requirements is the separation of “traditional Russian spiritual and moral values,” a list of which is not specified anywhere. Nowhere is the definition of “organic inclusion in positive social ties” specified: according to the document, all persons who have moved to Russia (including those who left it earlier) must voluntarily join these ties.

Originally published by Radio Liberty in Ukrainian

Translated by CBA Initiatives Center