Russia is using its army to try and take more of Ukraine. It's using its passports to control the population

For more than three years, every time 67-year-old Iryna and her husband stepped beyond their front door, the Ukrainian couple feared for their lives.

They could be caught up in shelling or in a drone strike — or end up being interrogated by security agents at gunpoint as they tried to cross a checkpoint in the southern part of Kherson region, an area still under Russian control. 

The couple, who had been living under occupation since the early days of Russia's invasion, initially refused to get a Russian passport even as Moscow made it increasingly difficult to survive without them. 

"Everything was becoming harder and harder," said Iryna during an interview with CBC News last month. "You felt like you were in a cage."

Iryna, who CBC News agreed to identify only by her first name due to her concerns about retribution from Russia, said she and her husband felt they had no choice but to get Russian passports last year. That was when the local stores closed and it became impossible to get groceries without going through a Russian checkpoint. 

Like many other Ukrainians, she and her husband accepted Russian citizenship because they feared what would happen if they didn't. 

It is part of what human rights experts see as a widespread campaign of coercion that's designed to extend Moscow's influence over the occupied territories, areas it demands Ukraine relinquish as part of any potential peace deal. 

At the same time, the Kremlin has refused to implement a 30-day ceasefire, and Russian forces have recently launched a new offensive to try and take more Ukrainian land. 

According to Moscow, 3.5 million residents living in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson have received passports.

While Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the country had "virtually completed" the mass issuance of passports in these areas, he signed a presidential decree in March to target the few Ukrainians still holding out. 

Ukrainians who live in Russia, or the areas it purports to control, have to legalize their status by Sept. 10 — or leave their homes. 

Though these Ukrainian regions aren't fully controlled by Russia, Moscow attempted to justify its claim to them by staging "sham" referendums in September 2022 that were condemned by world leaders. 

Its passport policy is an extension of that strategy, considered an attempt to weaken Ukrainian sovereignty and a clear sign that Moscow has no intention of giving up the territory it now occupies. 

Russia has previously used its fast-track passport scheme as a geopolitical tool in other areas, including in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia and in Moldova's separatist Transdniestria region.