Russia Refuses Subsidized Meds to Ukrainians Who Won’t Become Russian

• Ukrainians in occupied Zaporizhzhia are unable to get basic subsidized meds without a Russian passport, Ukraine says.
• This follows the alleged blocking of medical care in several other occupied towns.
• It’s part of coercive measures used by Russia to “Russianize” areas of occupied Ukraine.

Russian forces are denying basic medical care to Ukrainians in an occupied region who refuse to get Russian passports, Ukrainian officials said on Sunday.

Subsidized insulin and thyroid hormone medications are among the drugs being withheld in the southern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia, which Russia has largely occupied since last year, according to Ukraine’s National Resistance Center.

Ukrainians are entitled to free or discounted medicines, the center said.

The Kremlin and Russia’s Ministry of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the claim, which Insider was unable to independently verify.

Last June, Russian passports were handed out in Melitopol and Kherson, which were among the first cities to be captured in Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the move “a gross violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

This was followed by a widely-condemned series of referenda on Russianizing the occupied regions, leading up to Putin’s declaration, last September, that there were “four new regions of Russia.”

The vast majority of the international community does not recognize this claim.

In April, the UK’s Ministry of Defense said that Russia is “almost certainly” coercing Ukrainians in Kherson into getting a Russian passport, under threat of deportation or property seizure.

That same month, Putin declared that any Ukrainians without Russian passports in the annexed regions are to be considered stateless or foreign citizens, with the “right” to stay there until July 2024, as Foreign Policy reported. 

Last month, according to the National Resistance Center, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Hanna Maliar, said that hospital care is being blocked for those in some occupied settlements in Kherson who have not applied for a Russian passport.

These moves could potentially contravene the Geneva Convention, which states that occupying powers must abide by the laws of the country it is occupying, should provide medical care, and maintain health standards of the occupied population.