Graduates of Crimean universities are not issued diplomas unless they have registered for military service. The occupiers introduced this rule for male students back in 2014. However, now in the fifth year of the war, the Russians have refined their repressive methods.

Dzhelal Ichtenov, a graduate of Yalta College (first name, last name, and even the location have been changed for security reasons — Ed.), had turned 18 by the time he graduated. He passed all his exams with flying colors. However, he was unable to receive his diploma.

“I was called into Room 167, and there were people there whom I had never seen at our college before. They told me straight out: if I want to get my diploma, I have to sign a contract for military service right now,” says Dzhelal.

We are currently aware of three cases of this kind of pressure. All of them were graduates of a medical college. The occupiers make no secret of the fact that their army is short on medical personnel. All three young men are of legal age, so their parents can no longer protect them from being forcibly sent to war. The mother of one of the graduates suspects that the invaders may not stop at simply withholding his diploma.

“I’ve been thinking about taking my son out of Crimea. Today, they won’t give him his diploma, and tomorrow, they might forcibly send him to the front. But where can we take him? We don’t have Ukrainian documents, and with Russian ones, our options are very limited,” the woman says, unable to hide her despair.

Following the full-scale invasion, Crimea’s connection to the free Ukrainian mainland was severed. Previously, Crimeans could obtain documents in the Kherson region: a Public Service Center had been operating in the Henichesk district since January 2019. At the start of the war, expired documents could be renewed at the “Document” state enterprise in Istanbul, but it was closed in 2024. Diplomatic missions are unable to keep up with the flood of requests for Ukrainian documents, says Nazly Ametova. A Crimean resident living in Turkey, she has been trying in vain for several months to obtain a passport for her 14-year-old daughter.

“It’s impossible to contact Ukrainian consulates. The lines are months long, and the online scheduling system constantly shows ‘no available slots.’ No one explains why the state-owned enterprise “Document” was closed down, specifically in Turkey. It seems that Crimean residents are being deliberately cut off from the opportunity to feel like Ukrainian citizens, while the ability to obtain a white passport (a document allowing a single entry into Ukraine) is touted as a major achievement.”

For young men in Crimea who want to avoid being forcibly sent to war by the occupiers, there is only one option: to flee. But they can only go to a few countries of the former Soviet Union. And each of these countries is dangerous, because they could hand over to Moscow citizens who are technically Russian citizens.