Ukraine says Moscow is forcibly taking civilians to Russia
Russian Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev said the roughly 400,000 people evacuated to Russia since the start of the military action were from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow separatists have been fighting for control for nearly eight years.
Russian authorities said they are providing accommodations and dispensing payments to the evacuees.
But Donetsk Region Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said that “people are being forcibly moved into the territory of the aggressor state.” Denisova said those removed by Russian troops included a 92-year-old woman in Mariupol who was forced to go to Taganrog in southern Russia.
Ukrainian officials said that the Russians are taking people’s passports and moving them to “filtration camps” in Ukraine’s separatist-controlled east before sending them to various distant, economically depressed areas in Russia.
Among those taken, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry charged, were 6,000 residents of Mariupol, the devastated port city in the country’s east. Moscow’s troops are confiscating identity documents from an additional 15,000 people in a section of Mariupol under Russian control, the ministry said.
Some could be sent as far as the Pacific island of Sakhalin, Ukrainian intelligence said, and are being offered jobs on condition they don’t leave for two years. The ministry said the Russians intend to “use them as hostages and put more political pressure on Ukraine.” [Continue reading…]
Ukrainians are being arbitrarily detained and subjected to enforced disappearances in Russian-controlled areas, the UN has told the BBC.
At least 36 cases of civilian detentions were verified by the UN, with families often denied any information about the fate of those being held.
Ukrainians say they fear an escalating campaign of kidnappings and intimidation, as Russia struggles to assert control over towns it captures.
Viktoriia Roshchyna, a journalist, was working in occupied areas in the east of the country when she was taken by unidentified men on 15 March.
Her employer, Hromadske media, said she “was probably detained by the FSB”, Russia’s internal intelligence service, based on witness accounts of her being taken in the city of Berdyansk.
She was released six days later when a hostage-style video – apparently recorded under duress – began to circulate on pro-Russian Telegram outlets. In it Ms Roshchyna said Russia had not taken her captive and thanked Moscow’s forces for “saving her life”. [Continue reading…]