War in Ukraine: Hundreds of Ukrainians apparently deported to Russian filtration camps

Russian forces are said to have kidnapped hundreds of Ukrainians from the heavily damaged Mariupol to Russia. This emerges from consistent media reports based on the statements of two women concerned. Accordingly, the people who are to be forcibly resettled to Russia are first smuggled through so-called test and filtration camps in the Russian-controlled areas in the Donbass. The information cannot be checked independently.

However, the practice of filtration camps is well known. Such facilities were first operated from 1941 by the Soviet Union during World War II. The aim was to identify “traitors, spies and deserters” among members of the Red Army returning from captivity. The interrogations during the “filtration” were correspondingly distressing. According to Human Rights Watch, among other things, filtration camps were also operated during the Chechen wars. At that time, the mostly arbitrarily arrested inmates were said to have been completely deprived of their rights and subjected to abuse and torture during interrogation. “Separatists, terrorists and terrorist suspects” were to be filtered out of those arrested.

Filtration camp: “It was very humiliating”

The reports of two women who, according to their own account, were abducted from Mariupol fit this. Accordingly, on March 15, they were abducted with several other women and children from an air raid shelter and taken by bus to Novoazovsk in eastern Ukraine. After hours of waiting, they were ordered to go through a tent complex to the filtration camps.

quotes one of the women who described how she was treated in the camp. Her fingerprints were taken and she was photographed. She was then questioned “extensively” by members of the Russian security service FSB for several hours. “They searched my phone. They asked if I knew anything about the Ukrainian army, if I had friends in the military. They also asked me what I thought about Ukraine, about Putin and about the conflict. It was very demeaning .” They were then taken to Rostov, where they were told that their final destination was , some 100 miles east of Moscow. There, local media apparently confirmed the admission of 1,000 “refugees” from the “liberated areas”. The witness herself was able to stay in Rostov, pointing out that she had relatives in the city. But most of the others had no choice.

Kremlin spokesman: People left eastern Ukraine voluntarily

There is no denying that such institutions exist. Representatives of the two self-proclaimed “republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk reportedly confirmed that a “tent city of 30 tents” had been set up for residents of Mariupol. This can also be seen on satellite images from the US company Maxar. However, the Russian leadership denies that people are being forced there and then resettled to Russia. “Such reports are lies,” quoted the “Guardian” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Rather, 420,000 people were voluntarily evacuated “from dangerous regions” in eastern Ukraine.

International human rights groups are alarmed by the reports. In any case, such an approach constitutes a violation of the Geneva Convention. The victims do not necessarily have to be threatened with weapons, it is enough if they have no choice but to submit to forced deportation, explains Tatjana Lokshina from Human Rights Watch Newspaper. The extent of the alleged kidnappings cannot be assessed at this time. There are also people who are happy to be safe in Russia instead of being exposed to the constant dangers of war. “But we know of hundreds who were relocated against their will,” said a spokeswoman for a Russian aid organization for resettled people, “and that’s extremely worrying.”

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