A/HRC/44/21 relocated to other parts of Ukraine stated that they refrained from travelling back to Crimea for fear of conscription or criminal prosecution for draft evasion. 41. Conscription into the armed forces of the Russian Federation is inextricably linked to the automatic extension of citizenship of the Russian Federation to Ukrainians residing in Crimea. As only citizens of the Russian Federation are compelled to serve in the armed forces, the automatic extension of citizenship of the Russian Federation to citizens of Ukraine in Crimea since 2014 enabled the conscription of citizens of Ukraine from Crimea into the armed forces of the Russian Federation. V. Nationality and population transfers 42. International humanitarian law prohibits individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the occupying Power, or to that of any other country, occupied or not, regardless of their motive.53 43. According to the court registry of the Russian Federation, at least 191 transfer orders were issued in Crimea in 2019 concerning individuals considered foreigners under Russian law. 54 No fewer than 109 of these orders affected citizens of Ukraine (95 men and 14 women) whom the Russian Federation did not consider as having residency rights in Crimea. When compared to the two previous years, this is more than a twofold decrease in the number of transfer orders against citizens of Ukraine per year. 55 According to the judgments from the courts in Crimea, the majority of persons transferred to other parts of Ukraine were asserted to have had either no legitimate income, no family and social ties on the peninsula, to have lost their identification documents, failed to take steps to legalize their stay in Crimea, or had prior records for criminal or administrative offences. 44. OHCHR notes that in 2019, the courts in Crimea tended to impose monetary fines instead of transferring citizens of Ukraine when the latter could produce evidence that the possible transfer would violate their right to family and private life. Individuals whose close relatives in Crimea held citizenship of the Russian Federation or had lived in Crimea for a considerable amount of time were likely to be fined rather than transferred. 45. The reduction in the number of transfers of nationals of Ukraine in 2019 could also be partially attributed to the application of Decree No. 187 of the President of the Russian Federation, issued on 29 April 2019, which aimed at simplifying the process of acquiring citizenship of the Russian Federation for nationals of Ukraine living respectively in Crimea or Donbas. 56 According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, 12,290 individuals considered foreigners acquired citizenship of the Russian Federation in Crimea in 2019.57 This almost equals the number of “foreigners” who acquired citizenship of the Russian Federation in Crimea during the three previous years combined.58 OHCHR notes that the vast majority were citizens of Ukraine who chose to obtain passports of the Russian Federation in order to avoid the risk of being transferred from Crimea.59 According 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 Fourth Geneva Convention, art. 49. The authorities of the Russian Federation in Crimea treat citizens of Ukraine who reside on the peninsula without a passport of the Russian Federation as “foreigners”. As such, the courts in Crimea categorize the expulsion of citizens of Ukraine to parts of Ukraine outside Crimea as “deportations”. During 2017, Crimean courts ordered the transfer of 512 individuals, 287 of whom were citizens of Ukraine. In 2018, 435 transfer orders were issued, 231 of them concerning citizens of Ukraine. Available at http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/ 0001201905010004?index=0&rangeSize=1#print, in Russian only. Russian Federation, Ministry of Internal Affairs, “Selected indicators of the migration situation in the Russian Federation for January–December 2019 by region”. Available from https://мвд.рф/Deljatelnost/statistics/migracionnaya/item/19365693/, in Russian only. According to the Russian Federation, from 2016 to 2018, 14,332 individuals considered foreigners under the law of the Russian Federation acquired citizenship of the Russian Federation in Crimea. According to the results of the census conducted by the Russian Federation in Crimea in October 2014, citizens of Ukraine constituted 90 per cent of all individuals considered “foreigners” under the law of the Russian Federation who lived in Crimea. See the report of the Federal State Statistics 11