Russia-Ukraine War: People mainly from poorer and remote regions of Russia are being sent to Ukraine and resettled there.

Russia continues a “deliberate depopulation campaign” in occupied areas of Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported. In its update, the ISW stated that Russia is trying to facilitate the repopulation of Ukrainian territories with Russians.

The American thinktank noted Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Hanna Malyar said that Russia was “trying to change the ethnic composition of Ukraine” by conducting a large-scale resettlement. People mainly from poorer and remote regions of Russia are being sent to Ukraine and resettled there, the minister said.

Russia may hope to import Russians to fill depopulated areas of Ukraine in order to further integrate occupied areas into Russian socially, administratively, politically, and economically, thereby complicating conditions for the reintegration of these territories into Ukraine,” the ISW reported.

Earlier, the thinktank had assessed that depopulation and repopulation campaigns by Russia are a “deliberate ethnic cleansing effort” and a possible violation of the Geneva Convention.

The ISW also noted comments made by Russian officials that “continue to highlight a pervasive anxiety over potential Ukrainian counteroffensive actions”.

The Russian information space “has not yet settled on a line about how to address significant and growing concerns about the near future”, the thinktank noted.

This comes as the Ukraine capital Kyiv was rocked by blasts as air raid sirens and explosions were reported across the country, according to the Interfax Ukraine. Explosions were reported after midnight in Dnipro, Kremenchuk and Poltava in central Ukraine and in Mykolaiv in the south, Interfax said