Meduza reports:

On March 18, Ukrainian journalist Dmitry Gordon published a video message addressed to Ukrainians living in territories occupied or surrounded by Russian troops. He warned that there are “two types of humanitarian corridors” — those organized by Ukraine and those organized by Russia, and urged people not to use the latter.

“According to our information, Ukrainians who leave through the humanitarian corridors organized by the Russian authorities go through severe tests. And they end up in so-called filtration camps that were created exactly like the infamous NKVD camps in Soviet times. We have a lot of information that residents of Mariupol — in particular, those leaving along humanitarian corridors organized by the Russian authorities — ended up in these filtrations camps in large numbers, where they are tortured, harassed, and their fate is shrouded in mystery,” Gordon said. He did not explain where he got this information.

Attempts to evacuate civilians from areas where fighting is taking place has been a key issue throughout the month of March: almost every day, both Russian and Ukrainian officials announced the opening or the disruption of humanitarian corridors. At the same time, Russian officials have thought it important to underscore that Kyiv won’t agree to humanitarian corridors leading to Russia.

The Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly condemned forced deportations of Ukrainian citizens to Russia, as well as filtration camps allegedly designed to weed out anyone with pro-Ukrainian convictions, military personnel, and veterans of the Donbas war, among others. [Continue reading…]