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How Moscow Plans to Turn Occupied Ukrainian Territories Into a Settlement Hub by 2045
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Russia plans to draw more than 113,000 people to occupied parts of Ukraine by 2045 under long-term development schemes for the temporarily occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions, according to Ukrainska Pravda on March 17.
The outlet, citing Russian business daily Vedomosti, reported that the plans were prepared by VEB.RF together with Russia’s Unified Institute of Spatial Planning.
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Of that total, 67,100 people are expected to come through the master plans, and another 46,700 through the territorial planning projects.
The plans include large-scale construction and infrastructure projects meant to anchor that demographic shift.
Vedomosti reported that the program envisions 9.8 million square meters of new housing under the master plans and another 3.31 million square meters through territorial planning projects.
The plans also include, alongside 143 kindergartens, 24 schools, 117 outpatient clinics and field stations, more than 3,270 kilometers of roads, nearly 430 kilometers of rail lines, 19 stations, and the reconstruction of four airfields.
The same plans also call for industrial expansion, including 10 industrial parks, nine agro-industrial parks, two industrial parks of another category, four tech parks, eight machine-building enterprises, 15 construction-material plants, and six mining sites.
To carry out the program, Russian authorities expect to involve 225,400 people in implementation and create about 36,300 new jobs by 2045.
The projects were designed to improve living conditions for about 600,000 residents and raise the “investment attractiveness” of what Moscow calls its “reunified territories.”
Mariupol endured a nearly three-month Russian siege in 2022, ending in mass destruction. Investigators documented grave war crimes across occupied territories, including the bombing of the city’s Drama Theatre.
The UN verified 1,348 civilian deaths in Mariupol by mid-June 2022, but noted the real toll was likely far higher. Local and independent estimates put it above 10,000.
The plans also place heavy emphasis on tourism, with Russian officials projecting tourist and excursion flows of up to 9.4 million people a year by 2044.
Vedomosti reported that Moscow sees “high potential” in the occupied cities of Primorsk and Henichesk and is targeting sites including the Arabat Spit, the coast of the Zaporizhzhia region, Mariupol, Kyrylivka, and Skadovsk.
The agenda includes more than 5,000 hotel units in priority areas and as many as 22,000 rooms across the occupied regions overall.
The decision reinforces Moscow’s efforts to consolidate control over seized areas not only through military occupation, but also through housing, transport, industry, and tourism projects meant to reshape the regions for the long term.
The strategy is also reinforced by new legal tools aimed at redistributing property in the occupied regions.
The earlier move formalized a practice already used across occupied Ukrainian territories, allowing occupation authorities to label homes and apartments “ownerless” and reassign them under a newly approved federal framework.
The Center for Countering Disinformation reported that the expropriation campaign is expected to continue through 2030, tying the measure to what it described as the political deadline for Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s fifth term.
The threat now extends beyond residents who fled the war, reaching people who still remain under occupation and could also lose property through fabricated claims of abandonment.
Seized property is expected to be redistributed to Russian military personnel, security officers, officials, and public-sector workers brought into the occupied territories.
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