He and his parents were among the last in their village to take a Russian passport, but the pressure was becoming unbearable.
By his third beating at the hands of the Russian soldiers occupying Ukraine’s Kherson region, Vyacheslav Ryabkov caved. The soldiers broke two of his ribs, but his face was not bruised for his unsmiling passport photo, taken in September 2023.
It wasn’t enough.
In December, they caught the welder on his way home from work. Then one slammed his rifle butt down on Ryabkov’s face, smashing the bridge of his nose.
“Why don’t you fight for us? You already have a Russian passport,” they demanded. The beating continued as the 42-year-old fell unconscious.
“Let’s finish this off,” one soldier said. A friend ran for Ryabkov’s mother.
Russia has successfully imposed its passports on nearly the entire population of occupied Ukraine by making it impossible to survive without them, coercing hundreds of thousands of people into citizenship ahead of elections Vladimir Putin has made certain he will win, an Associated Press investigation has found. But accepting a passport means that men living in occupied territory can be drafted to fight against the same Ukrainian army that is trying to free them.
With what amount of law exists there, these regions are a holy grail for I doubt anyone even knows how much people are alive and still there. They may use aproximations circa 2013 to get an easy way to add votes. They probably didn’t count locals with a passport in a short period of time after Sept. 2023 if at all.
It’s weird though that there’s some legalism making them actually get the passport and sign for service themselves. I thought it could be automated. Probably a way to explain their mission here? Look, they take these papers, so we have big numbers to back up the cause and our governor looks pretty on meetings! I’m not sure why’s that so.