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Comment of the MFA on the adoption by the Russian Federation of a law on 'ownerless' property in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine

10 December 2025 17:00

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine strongly condemns the adoption by the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation of yet another illegal act aimed at the mass deprivation of Ukrainian citizens of their property in the temporarily occupied territories. Russia has effectively declared itself a thief state.

The adoption of the so-called 'law' on 'recognising housing as ownerless' grossly violates the fundamental norms of international humanitarian law and international human rights law.

As the occupying state, the Russian Federation is obliged under international humanitarian law to respect private property and refrain from confiscating it. Article 46 of the Regulations on the Laws and Customs of War on Land, which is an annex to the Fourth Hague Convention of 1907, expressly prohibits the appropriation of private property in occupied territories.

The imposition by the occupying authorities of the Russian Federation of fictitious procedures regarding the 'impossibility of establishing the owner' and the attempt to legitimise outright looting through federal law will have no international legal consequences. Such actions are null and void, do not change the status of the territory of Ukraine and do not affect the rights of the legitimate owners of the property.

We consider such actions to be part of the Russian Federation's deliberate policy to change the demographic composition of the occupied territories, displace the local population and settle Russian citizens, which is an additional violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the transfer of the occupying power's population to the occupied territory.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine calls on the international community to condemn Russia's latest gross violations of international humanitarian law and to continue supporting international mechanisms for holding the Russian Federation and its military and political leadership accountable, including by considering these actions as war crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Ukraine will ensure that all facts of illegal seizure of property are documented and guarantees the restoration of the rights of legal owners after the de-occupation of Ukrainian territories. All illegal decisions of the aggressor state will have no legal force and will be cancelled.