The United States accused the Russian army on Thursday of having mobilized “by force” “several thousand” of Ukrainians to Russia since the beginning of the war at the end of February.
Kyiv presented the figure of almost 1.2 million Ukrainians deported by Moscow to Russia, and also denounced the existence of “filtration camps” in Russian-controlled territories in eastern Ukraine, through which these “deportees” pass.
“USA estimates that Russian forces transferred at least several thousand Ukrainians into these “filtration camps” and evacuated at least several tens of thousands more to Russia without telling them their final destination,” the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Michael Carpenter.
“Even if it’s only from Mariupol“A strategic port city now virtually controlled by Russia, “we estimate that Russian forces forcibly displaced several thousand civilians into Russian territory,” he added in a speech in Vienna, according to a transcript released by the US State Department.
The diplomat referred to testimonies about the “brutal interrogations”, including “torture”, in those “filtration camps”, intended to identify any person with the “slightest loyalty to Ukraine“.
There are “many accounts of cell phones being confiscated from detainees,” including their passports, “passwords obtained under duress, social media and messaging systems scrutinized for any sign of opposition to Russia’s barbaric war against Ukraine,” he said.
“According to these reports, those who are considered pro-Ukrainian are transferred to the so-called “people’s republic of Donetsk“” controlled by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, “where they face a sinister fate,” Carpenter denounced.
“These acts constitute war crimes,” he denounced. “Russia is well aware” that such “forced displacement” is “contrary to international humanitarian law,” she insisted.
According to Lioudmila Denissova, a Ukrainian government official, “more than 1.19 million” Ukrainians, “including more than 200,000 children, were deported to the Russian Federation“.
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