Only 30% of residents in temporarily occupied Donbas have jobs

Over 3,000 businesses in the temporarily occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts have completely ceased operations and now only about 30% of the population have any form of employment.

Source: Ukraine's National Resistance Center (NRC)

Quote: "According to Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, as a result of the fighting in Donbas, more than three thousand enterprises in the temporarily occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions have completely stopped their activities."

Details: As a result, only about 30% of residents have at least some form of work, most of it temporary, low-paid, or connected with Russian occupation organisations.

Local sources told the NRC that some people are being forced to work on "military-restoration" sites – in municipal services, on the construction of defence structures, or in repair units that are subordinate to the Russian military.

Payment for this kind of work is often made late or takes the form of food packages.

"The occupation administrations are closing massive numbers of local factories and mines, which were previously the basis of the region's economy. Production facilities are being exported to Russia or transferred to the control of Russian companies," the NRC said.

Some workers have been officially "downsized" so that they are not counted in the unemployment statistics.

"Inside the occupation structures, it was recognised that the economy of the region has been practically destroyed: industry is not being restored, there are no new investments, and all resources are being directed exclusively to military needs," the NRC noted.

"Thus, the unemployment rate in the occupied territories is three times higher than in 1992, and the standard of living remains catastrophic.

Donbas, which Russia promised to 'raise from its knees', has turned into a zone of social decline, where survival has become the only 'job'," the NRC concluded.

Background:

• The management of 1,600 residential buildings in the temporarily occupied part of Kherson Oblast, with a total area of almost 2.9 million sq m, has been transferred to the so-called Unified Management Company.
• During the scorching hot summer of 2025, water supply disruptions pushed Donetsk Oblast to the brink of a humanitarian disaster.
• Water levels in the Zuivske and Vilkhivske reservoirs dropped critically, threatening the operation of the Zuivska thermal power plant.
• In the Russian-occupied territories of Donetsk Oblast, the water shortage intensified.
• The Russian occupying authorities in Kherson Oblast claimed they had completed the construction of a government quarter near the town of Henichesk, although the buildings were erected before the full-scale invasion.
• Over 3,000 companies based in the temporarily occupied part of Kherson Oblast have been registered in the Russian business register since 24 February 2022.

Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!