Ukrainians say they were pressured to register babies as Russian during
occupation
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[March 03, 2023]
By Rod Nickel and Leonardo Benassatto
KHERSON, Ukraine (Reuters) - The moment her grand-daughter was born,
Olha Lukina, 65, rushed to a registry office. It was one of the last
still providing Ukrainian citizenship for newborns in the southern city
of Kherson which was then under Russian occupation.
Baby Kateryna became Ukraine's newest citizen that day in May, born into
one of the country's darkest times.
Later in the occupation, Russia required all newborns to receive Russian
citizenship, said Leonid Remyga, chief doctor at Kherson City Clinical
Hospital, the city's only working hospital.
Russia occupied Kherson for eight months last year until Ukrainian
soldiers recaptured it in November. Many residents initially returned,
but Kherson is more like a ghost town now due to shelling by Russian
troops across the Dnipro River.
Early in the occupation, Ukrainian parents faced pressure to accept
Russian citizenship for their newborns. According to Remyga and
Kateryna's parents - Natalia Lukina and Oleksii Markelov - this included
denying them free distribution of diapers and baby food.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Mar/03/images/ads/current/graue_lda_22COLORADOpreowned_022023.jpg)
It is an example of how residents of towns and cities in Ukraine's east
and south that Russian forces captured had to navigate sudden and
sometimes dangerous changes in rules and demands made by the occupiers.
"When we asked for diapers, the Russians told us, 'If you come without
Russian birth certificates, we will not give you diapers'," said Natalia
Lukina, 42.
Most parents of small children, with little income during the war,
accepted free diapers from Russians, Lukina's partner Oleksii Markelov,
said. "There wasn't a penny of money."
Reuters could not independently corroborate their account.
Russia's intelligence service, the FSB, which helps enforce rules in
occupied territories in Ukraine, did not respond to a request for
comment on the residents' account.
Lukina refused to change the birth certificate of her daughter, who was
born two months after Russia captured Kherson.
Reuters has seen Kateryna's Ukrainian documentation, stamped by
Ukraine's justice ministry. The ministry did not respond to a request
for comment on the situation in Kherson during Russian occupation.
"We told (Russians) that the baby was born in Ukraine and is Ukrainian,
not Russian," Lukina said in an interview in her cramped home, where she
and Markelov live with their three children and her elderly mother Olha,
without electricity or running water.
The house is just 1.5 km (one mile) from the Russian-controlled side of
the Dnipro, from where troops fire artillery at Kherson daily.
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![](../images/030323PIX/news_m91.jpg)
Oleksii Markelov holds his daughter baby
Kateryna, who was born during the Russian occupation, as he stands
next to their house amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Antonivka,
Kherson region, Ukraine, February 21, 2023. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Mar/03/images/ads/current/heartland_lda_020123.png)
'THREATS', 'PROPAGANDA'
The doctor Remyga said he still applied Ukrainian laws early in the
occupation, until soldiers suspended him from his job on June 7.
"They conducted such a propaganda campaign, that Russia is here
forever," Remyga told Reuters at the hospital. "But then FSB
officers would threaten that if (families) did not receive Russian
documents they would have problems."
Remyga said he fell ill in June and spent a month in hospital under
soldiers' watch. He managed to escape the following month.
He said FSB officers arrested him on Sept. 20, cuffed him and pulled
a bag over his head, before driving him to an unknown detention
centre, where he was interrogated.
The officers released him in early October and forbade him to return
to work at the hospital, he said.
Remyga said he was back on the job on Nov. 12, the day after Ukraine
recaptured Kherson.
The FSB did not respond to a request for comment on Remyga's
account.
In Ukrainian hospitals, parents receive a basic medical record of
their baby's birth but must go to a registry office for the birth
certificate of a citizen of Ukraine, conferring citizenship.
During the occupation, many parents delayed visiting
Russian-controlled registry offices, said Olena Klimenko, head of
Kherson's regional registration office.
Once the occupation ended, many of those parents registered their
babies for Ukrainian citizenship, Klimenko said. She did not have
precise statistics.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Mar/03/images/ads/current/humanesociety_sda022411.png)
It is unclear how many babies received Russian citizenship, because
Russian officials recorded them and Ukrainian registration workers
did not cooperate with them, Klimenko said.
Before the war, an average of 1,200 babies were born at Kherson City
Clinical Hospital per year, but the number dropped to 489 births in
2022, according to Remyga.
He said the drop reflected the fact that many mothers left to give
birth in Ukrainian-controlled parts of the country, or abroad.
(Reporting by Rod Nickel and Leonardo Benassatto in Kherson,
Ukraine; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Angus MacSwan)
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