Kremlin plans future of captured Ukrainian Azov region - intel
The Kremlin has approved the Strategy for Sustainable Development of the Azov Region until 2040, a document that justifies the illegal inclusion of temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine into the legal, administrative, and economic space of the Russian Federation under the guise of “long-term development.”
According to Ukrinform, this was reported by the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine.
The strategy formally covers seven subjects of the Russian Federation, including the occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions, and is another step towards legitimizing the occupation through bureaucratic and economic mechanisms.
The document declares “ecological transformation,” the development of infrastructure, tourism, water transport, and fisheries, but the set of goals for 2030 seems detached from the reality of a region that is in a state of war, sanctions, and degradation of basic infrastructure.
Among the stated indicators are the improvement of public services for 2.58 million people, the creation of “comfortable living conditions” for 750,000 residents, and the formation of a tourist flow of 23.6 million trips per year. These figures are not backed up by either sources of funding or clear implementation mechanisms, and the list of environmentally hazardous facilities, 17 of which are planned to be eliminated out of 30, is not even specified in the document.
The strategy implementation plan includes 79 measures in 18 areas, ranging from the construction of the Primorsk federal seaside resort in the Zaporizhzhia region to the development of sturgeon farming, oyster farms, and jellyfish processing.
Separately, the restoration of hydrometeorological and environmental monitoring systems, the disposal of sunken ships in the Sea of Azov, and large-scale changes to the water management schemes of the Don and Dnipro rivers have been declared. Taken together, these initiatives are a set of populist projects that do not take into account the legal status of the territories, real environmental risks, and technical limitations.
Particular emphasis is placed on the modernization of the port and transport-logistics infrastructure of the Azov basin and its integration into the all-Russian cargo corridors. Despite the civilian rhetoric, these measures have an obvious dual purpose and are in fact aimed at strengthening the military-logistical capabilities of the Russian Federation in the region.
“Ultimately, the strategy is a tool for political demonstration of control, combining exaggerated socio-economic promises with infrastructure projects focused primarily on the interests of the aggressor state, rather than the population of the Azov region,” the intelligence report emphasized.
As reported by Ukrinform, Russia has intensified its use of the seaport in the temporarily occupied Mariupol, presenting this as “restoration.”