ABSTRACT
There are various forms of mobility and immobility caused by Russian aggression and the new border regime in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. This chapter offers a classification of several groups of people who remained in these areas, including ‘supporters’, ‘collaborators’, and ‘former collaborators’ of the occupation regime, as well as Russian passport holders who are unable to travel to the government-controlled part of Ukraine. There are also hostages of the occupation regime; ‘stayers’ who simply wish to remain; ‘carers’ or those unable to leave due to poor health or lack of financial resources; and internally displaced people (IDPs) within the occupied territories. Individuals who chose to flee to other parts of Ukraine mostly identified themselves as ‘refugees’ or simply as ‘Ukrainian citizens’ highlighting their agency. Displacement has been one of the first manifestations of bordering before the checkpoints were established. In turn, the social production of the category ‘internally displaced person’ involved both physical and narrative bordering and categorisation from the state, which in turn ‘produced’ a group often portrayed negatively, reflecting the government's distrust towards IDPs. In terms of temporality and space, the socio-political construction of IDPs by the authorities was static and rooted in control.
