Throughout their history, Ukrainians have experienced many forced deportations. During the Soviet Union alone, there were at least five waves of mass deportations. In the 1920s, ethnic Ukrainians were massively deported to the Russian Far East. After a terrible famine organized by the Soviet regime in the 30s, many wealthy peasants were sent to Siberia. Not so long ago, on May 15, Ukraine marked the anniversary of the deportation of the Crimean Tatars, during which up to half a million people were sent to Central Asia, many of whom died. Millions of Ukrainians went through the Gulag, the Soviet Union's system of concentration camps.
Today, Russian aggression against Ukraine has once again deprived hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians of their homes. Like decades ago, Ukrainians end up in Siberia en masse, without the right to leave.
How did the deportation start?
According to the information of the ex-Commissioner for Human Rights of the Verkhovna Rada Lyudmila Denisova, as of May 21, 1,377,925 Ukrainians were forcibly deported from Ukraine, including 232,480 children. Later these figures were actually confirmed by Russian officials. According to Russian top-ranking military Mikhail Mizintsev, the head of the Russian Defense Control Center (a man who should rightfully be considered a war criminal because he directly led the indiscriminate shelling of the cities of Volnovakha and Mariupol), since the beginning of the war, 1,936,911 Ukrainians have been deported to Russia, of which 307,423 are children.
As of September 2022, the US estimates that the occupiers have deported 1.6 million Ukrainians to Russia.
In fact, the forced deportations of Ukrainians began even before the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation on 24 February. Back on February 16, against the backdrop of Russian provocations in certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions (CADLO), the leaders of the occupation administration decided to forcibly relocate the inhabitants of these territories to Russia. The Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security indicates that the people whom the occupiers forcibly took from CADLO to Russia found themselves in difficult conditions. At first they were frightened by loud explosions, the sound of sirens and an “evacuation order”. Then they spent 10-14 hours in buses in queues at the border with Russia. With small children. Without food, toilet and the normal ability to sleep. Only women and children were released into Russia, separating families.
A new wave of deportations began already in the face of a full-scale Russian invasion. On March 7, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced the opening of so-called "humanitarian corridors" for the "evacuation" of residents of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy and Mariupol to Belarus and the Russian Federation. Prior to this, Russia had already disrupted the humanitarian corridors, organized through the mediation of the Red Cross, by shelling evacuation routes from the most difficult cities (from a humanitarian point of view) - Mariupol and Volnovakha.
Whereas in the case of the outskirts of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Sumy there were still relatively safe opportunities to travel to Ukrainian-controlled territories, the situation was completely different for the encircled cities, such as Mariupol. On March 19, information appeared about the beginning of the mass deportation of city residents to specially created filtration camps, from where Ukrainians were taken further to the territory of Russia. On March 20, this information was confirmed by the Mariupol City Council. They noted that the civilians of the streets of Azovstalska and Ukrains'koho Kozatstva of the Left Bank District of Mariupol were illegally deported to the enemy's territory.
On May 21, the first video evidence of the forced deportation was released. “When boarding, they already report that the bus is taking to the Bezimenne, Novoazovsk district and then to Russia. The Russian military and official volunteers are blocking any attempts to leave the place and refuse to evacuate, said Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol.
Filtration procedure: seizure of documents and phones
Mariupol authorities report that captured Ukrainians are being taken to filtration camps in Novoazovsk. Soon, pictures of one of the camps were published by Maxar.
According to Ukrainian intelligence, as well as a number of leading media, before being sent to Russia, deported Ukrainians are checked by the Federal Security Service (FSB) of the Russian Federation. In particular, they are looking for former military, their relatives, social activists, etc. among them.
Eyewitnesses who ended up in such camps claim that their documents were taken for verification, after which they may not be returned at all. People's phones were checked, primarily the gallery, in search of photographs that could discredit the Russian troops. Sometimes people were forced to sign documents not to leave the territory of Russia for several years. In some cases, the Russian military arrange interrogations, ask about the attitude towards the Russian military. This is confirmed by the story of one of those deported to Belarus, whose testimony was edited and shown on Russian television.
Maxar Satellite Images
Deportation camps: from Azov sea cost to Siberia
In total, according to investigative journalists, only in Mariupol 95,000 residents were taken to Russia (and to the occupied Crimea). While on the 20th of March, this figure was only 15,000. Using information from local Russian media, they mapped the 66 camps where Ukrainians live. They stretch from the temporary occupied Crimea to Kamchatka, a remote region in eastern Russia, 10,500 kilometers from Mariupol.
inews.co.uk
The biggest camp caused some confusion. It is the complex of the former chemical weapons dump in Leonidivka, not far from the Russian city of Penza. Apparently, this is a non-active military base, where the elimination of an arsenal of nerve agents took place. According to media reports, it housed about 600 Mariupol residents.
The second largest camp - Tsaritsyno, is located in the north of Russia in the Novgorod region. At least 9 camps are located on the territory of Siberia. Including 4 in the Altai Republic and two more in the area of the city of Irkutsk. In this context, it is important to mention the article by Shoigu, published in September 2021, about the need to build 3-5 large scientific and industrial centers in Siberia from scratch.
The Vostok deportation camp can be considered one of the most remote. It is located in Vladivostok, a city in the Russian Far East, just a few dozen kilometers from the border with North Korea. There are at least 306 Ukrainians, making it the fourth largest camp. Another 10 people were sent to a settlement in Kamchatka.
In total, there are four camps in the Far Eastern Federal District. This part of Russia is characterized by its extreme weather conditions, as well as the largest demographic decline due to a depressed economy and lack of developed infrastructure.
Among the deportation points, according to open sources collected by the analytical portal inews, is the “Avangard” Center for Patriotic Education near Ivanovo in Ulyanovsk, a city on the banks of the Volga River. This center, which specializes in “military-patriotic work” and propaganda for “commitment to serving the Motherland,” opened on the site of a former orphanage in February as part of a national “educational” project initiated by Putin.
Ukrainians deported to Crimea, in turn, are forced to obtain Russian citizenship.
This list is only a part of those camps and other detention centers for deported Ukrainians, which was found through open sources. In reality, their number is much larger, as are the Ukrainians who were forcibly taken to Russia.
On May 9, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby confirmed that the US “had undeniably seen signs that Ukrainians were being deported from Ukraine to Russia. We have signs that Ukrainians are being taken to Russia against their will.”
Escape from the camp: testimonies of the deportees
Some deportees still manage to get to the territory of Ukraine or another European country. However, this requires a long route. The vast majority are forced to travel to the northwest of Russia at their own expense, and then cross the border with Estonia. For example, a comment to the Estonian media by a girl named Valentina, who was able to go from Mariupol to Estonia, bypassing the occupied Melitopol and Crimea:
“Passports are taken from them [the deportees], motivated by the fact that it is necessary to draw up documents, and for two years you do not have the right to leave Russia. I saw the guys who were taken out, put on the bus and did not even answer the question: where are they going? Where will they settle? What kind of work awaits them? There is simply no future. That is, they put you on a bus and take you in the direction that they consider correct. For me, this is forced deportation.”
That this is a regular practice, and not an exception, was confirmed by the Estonian authorities. Local police and border guards have confirmed that they are in contact with Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russia. Carriers have also announced this. A representative of the bus company Baltic Shuttle said that more than 50% of its customers on the St. Petersburg-Narva line are Ukrainians leaving Russia:
“More than 50 percent of our passengers are Ukrainian refugees who arrived in Russia from Ukraine and are traveling by bus to Estonia from St. Petersburg to stay here or go further,” the message says.
Some people entered Russia voluntarily because they could not leave the war zone and go to Ukrainian-controlled territory. “However, there were also people who were forcibly deported to Russia and, upon arrival, they were allowed to leave on their own,” the Narva police said.
Another example is provided by a resident of Hostomel, who was taken to Belarus in a convoy of 10 vehicles by the Russian military on March 7 without the consent of the Ukrainian side. There, he and other residents of Hostomel, who had been under stress for more than a week, were used to film propaganda videos for Russian TV channels: "They didn't seem to force us, but who would refuse?"
According to the Ukrainian consulate, many residents of Irpin, Hostomel and other settlements of the Kyiv region were in Mozyr, Homel region, without documents and means of communication.
Human rights violations
Today, the topic of deportation of Ukrainians is under the scrutiny of Ukrainian official bodies, including the Office of the President and The General Prosecutor Office.
On 17 June, the Cabinet of Ministers set up a special Сoordination Headquarters for the Protection of the Rights of People Deported or Illegally Displaced in Connection with the Armed Aggression against Ukraine. The Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Minister of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories Iryna Vereshchuk was appointed head of the Headquarters. The main tasks of the Coordination Headquarters are to facilitate activities to protect the rights of deported peoples among all stakeholders and to identify ways and means to address the problematic issues of such persons.
The actions of the Russian Federation, its military personnel, as well as controlled proxies, testify to a gross violation of international humanitarian law, as well as the laws and customs of war. In particular, Russia's actions contradict:
Article 49 of IV Geneva Convention:
Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.
Under Article 147 of IV Geneva Convention:
unlawful deportation or transfer a protected person (civilian) are considered a grave breach of the Geneva Convention.
Under Art. 7-8 of the Rome Statute (Statute of the International Criminal Court)
deportation or forcible transfer of population is both a crime against humanity and a war crime and its perpetrators can be prosecuted by the ICC.
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