Olga Robinson, Christina Givens, Olga Malchevska and Matt Murphy
BBC fact-finding team
Russian authorities are systematically seizing thousands of homes from Ukrainian residents of Mariupol, a BBC fact-finding team investigation shows.
It's been three years since this Ukrainian coastal city under occupation.
At least 5.700 homes are set to be confiscated, many belonging to people who fled the city, according to a BBC analysis of documents released by city authorities set up by Russia after July 2024.
To save their own homes, Ukrainians would have to endure a dangerous return to Mariupol via Russia, grueling security checks, a complex bureaucratic process, and strong pressure to accept a Russian passport.
Most of the affected property once belonged to Ukrainians who either fled or died during Russia's 86-day siege of the strategically important city in 2022.
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More than 8.000 people died in the bombing of the city, but that figure is "likely a significant underestimate," the organization said. Human Rights Watch.
The confiscations appear to be part of a broader plan to "Russify" the occupied coastal city, which includes building new military facilities and renaming streets with names approved by Moscow.
A study by Human Rights Watch showed that 93 percent of Mariupol's skyscrapers - 443 buildings - were destroyed or damaged in the Russian siege.
Russia has since claimed to have built more than 70 new apartment buildings, but locals say there is still a severe housing shortage.
There have been reports for some time that Russia is confiscating property in occupied Ukraine.
This process was accelerated by the new law, but also made it more difficult for Ukrainian owners to exercise their rights.
Documents analyzed by the BBC show that 2.200 homes of city officials are planned to be seized, and that 3.500 are on a list of potential confiscations.
Mariupol officials did not respond to inquiries.
Halina is among an estimated 350.000 Ukrainians who fled Mariupol to escape Russian occupation.
We agreed not to publish her last name out of concern for the safety of her family who remained in the city.
She said that her apartment building in the coastal town, which had a population of 425.000 before the war, was severely damaged by Russian tank fire during the siege.
She was told that the apartment's "windows and doors" had been repaired and that people were living there without her permission.
She fears that her apartment will be taken away.
"It's legalized property theft," she says.
Russian officials use the term "ownerless" to describe homes that are unoccupied or without a legal owner - effectively property that is not registered in Russia.
But these apartments have legal owners – Ukrainian residents who fled the Russian occupation or are the heirs of those who died in Russian attacks.
Official documents published on the pro-Russian administration's website show this complex process that leads to property being seized after being reported by local inspectors or residents.
ORIGINAL LIST
Within 10 days of the initial report, the Russian-appointed authorities post a notice on their website that the property shows "signs of being ownerless."
REGISTRATION STARTS
The owner must then appear in Mariupol with ownership documents and a Russian passport.
Authorities say they accept other forms of identification that are not specifically listed.
PROPERTY IN THE REGISTER
If the owner does not appear in person within 30 days of the publication of the list, the authorities begin to register the property as "ownerless."
Once the property is registered as "no owner," the authorities wait three months, then seek a court order to transfer the home to the city.
We could not find a record of how many apartments passed the final court stage.
At a recent press conference, Oleg Morgun, the Russian-appointed mayor of Mariupol, said that a final court decision had been made to confiscate some 600 apartments.
In practice, if your apartment ends up on any of these lists, you practically "cannot" get your property back, says Petro Andrushenko, a former advisor to the Ukrainian mayor of Mariupol.
Morgun insisted in early April that the homes would be removed from the registry "if the owner files an appeal."
Once homes are seized, a law passed in late 2024 allows authorities to transfer ownership to individuals.
Only residents of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic who have lost their property and hold a Russian passport can receive apartments under this program.
It seems that the authorities want to make it more difficult for Ukrainians to exercise their own rights.
All homes in places like Mariupol must be registered in Russia, but a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin in March prohibits residents of "hostile" countries, including Ukraine, from registering property in the occupied territories until 2028 without special permission.
This practically puts Ukrainians before an impossible choice: their security and identity or their home.
Pavlo says he had to stay in Mariupol throughout the siege after being shot by Russian soldiers.
He managed to prevent the seizure of his own home by obtaining a Russian passport and says that "95 percent of all the conversations in this city are about property."
The BBC has agreed not to publish his real name to protect his identity.
In Telegram chats reviewed by the BBC's fact-finding team, some of which have thousands of users, many locals were confused by the process.
At times, they did not understand how the property was ultimately declared "ownerless."
"The rules are not clear and are not published anywhere."
"You can be prosecuted for anything Ukrainian on your phone or in the file they have on you," says Halina.
Diana Berg also fled the city to escape the Russian occupation, leaving behind her family home.
She is now somewhere else in Ukraine.
To prevent the property from passing into the hands of the city, Diana's cousin would have to return to Mariupol.
The only way to do this is to land at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, where he will face grueling security checks by the Federal Security Service (FSB) known as "filtration."
Dijana says there is "no way" her family will travel to Mariupol.
"The 'filtration' process can take up to a week."
"They don't lock you up, but they keep you in that hub while they check you," he says.
The housing plans appear to be part of a broader campaign to "Russify" the southern Ukrainian city.
Satellite images and media reports show that a new naval academy and a large war memorial are being built.
A new coat of arms of the city was also adopted, from which the Ukrainian language was removed and Russian symbols were added.
Many of these changes were introduced with very little resistance, but the housing program has provoked rare criticism among the remaining residents of Mariupol dissatisfied with the status of the apartments being offered to them.
The protests came after Russian President Putin personally endorsed the program in December 2024.
One legal expert said the plan was a clear violation of the customs of warfare defined by the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Hague Convention.
They are prohibited from seizing civilian property except in very limited cases.
The seizures are illegal because they stem from an "illegal annexation" approved by the parliament in Moscow in 2022, argues Nehal Bhuta, chair of international law at the University of Edinburgh.
For Ukrainians, Andrushenko says, it is a tedious and confusing process.
"It's like someone is hurting you over and over again."
"You cannot understand how it is possible that your apartment, your property, 'has no owner'."
"It's like being hit in the head with a hammer," he says.
The BBC has downloaded documents containing a list of addresses from the official website of the pro-Russian authorities publicly available in Mariupol.
Addresses were standardized, and values were added for the latitude and longitude of each location, allowing maps to be drawn.
Additional reporting: Alex Murray, Yaroslava Kiryukhna and Harriet Agerholm
Design: Mesut Ersoz, Ervan Rivolt and Luiz Hunter
Developed by: Giacomo Boscaini-Gilroy and Sean Hardern
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