Russian Occupation Update; April 14, 2025

Russian Occupation update; April 14, 2025.  

Author: Karolina Hird 

Data cut-off: 11:15am EST, April 13  ISW is introducing a new product line tracking activities in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. The occupation updates will examine Russian efforts to consolidate administrative control of annexed areas and forcibly integrate Ukrainian citizens into Russian sociocultural, economic, military, and governance systems. This product line is intended to replace the section of the Daily Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment covering activities in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.     Read ISW’s assessment of how Russian activities in occupied areas of Ukraine are part of a coerced Russification and ethnic cleansing campaign, click here. 

Key takeaways:  

• Russia is using occupied Ukraine to support its domestic drone development and production industry.
• Russia is also integrating Ukrainian children into its wider drone operator training and drone production ecosystem.
• Russian occupation administrators are implementing projects to increase the birth rate in occupied Ukraine and further Russia’s illegitimate claims to the territories it illegally occupies.
• Russia is deporting Ukrainian prisoners from prisons in occupied Ukraine to penal colonies throughout the Russian Federation.

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