Filtration camps in Mariupol

In just a few weeks, the city of half a million people has become a real hell on earth. Despite being cut off from the outside world, we were able to gather evidence of the horror taking place in the heart of Europe today.

For eight years, Mariupol was the showcase of "Ukrainian Donbas". But in just a matter of weeks, Russian troops turned it from the city with the biggest payroll in Ukraine, into a veritable ghetto. Mariupol has become a big concentration camp, unprecedented in its size: people are forced to undergo filtration, the unwanted are sent to camps, the dead are burned in mobile crematoria, and labor conscription is introduced for the living.

From the first hours of the war, Mariupol became one of the hottest points of the war. Mariupol, given its location, size and concentration of infrastructure, was of strategic importance. Russian forces deployed considerable forces to seize the city, which they failed to capture during the fighting in 2014-2015. Despite fierce clashes, the city was encircled on 1 March.

First, there was a blackout in the city. The Russians deliberately struck all power lines and mobile operator towers, leaving Mariupol almost completely without cell phone service. Then, after the bombing of pumping stations and reservoirs, water disappeared. Lastly, gas disappeared, leaving hundreds of thousands of civilians freezing in the 10-degree cold. All types of fuel had become scarce and there were no supplies left. From the first days of March, the city plunged into a complete humanitarian disaster, without any means of communication with the outside world.

The last journalists left the city on 15 March. Associated Press reporters were secretly evacuated by the Ukrainian military because it was they who the day before had shown the horrific footage from the bombed-out maternity hospital. The Russians deliberately plunged the city into total isolation to cover up their crimes: indiscriminate bombardment, monstrous destruction and graves in the yards of residential buildings.

Since then, the world has been learning about the situation in Mariupol from survivors who managed to flee the city. Those who have loved ones left in Mariupol often have to learn their fate from numerous Telegram channels. The largest of these is “Mariupol Now”, which has around 200,000 subscribers. With the help of it and a number of other groups, we will try to shed light on the human rights violations that are taking place in Mariupol today.

Disclaimer: We realize that Telegram feeds cannot be an absolute source of information. However, we have used various methods of cross-checking the information to ensure its reliability. It includes satellite images, comments from officials.

Filtation

As the Russian troops advanced deeper into the city, information began to emerge about the measures the occupiers were taking against civilians. Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukraine's minister for reintegration of the temporarily occupied territories, was one of the first to report this. On 21 March, she said that residents of the left bank of Mariupol were forced to evacuate to the territory controlled by the so-called DPR, where everyone undergoes a "filtration" procedure. People are checked for contacts with the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the media or any civil activity. Ex-ombudsman Lyudmyla Denysova, the mayor of Mariupol and a number of other officials have spoken about the existence of such camps.

The aggressive behaviour of the Russian military became known in mid-March, when the first civilians leaving the city in their own vehicles were forced to undress at checkpoints. This was used to check their involvement with (as the Russian military call it) "nationalist formations" and Azov (National Guard unit). Tattoos, scars and even the presence of a beard or blisters were suspected by the Russian military.

Russian checkpoints

Russian checkpoints

It is noteworthy that a similar inspection was carried out by the occupiers in Melitopol.

However, even such measures proved to be lenient compared to what happened next. Approximately from the 20s of March, dactyloscopy - the taking of fingerprints. The filtration procedure, or as it is called in the occupation administration "verification", involves checking documents, mobile phones, collecting fingerprints and workplace information. In contrast to previous intervals, filtration was mandatory not only for those evacuated to the east (non-government-controlled territory) but also for those travelling to Zaporizhzhia. The evacuation took place along the Mariupol-Berdyansk-Zaporizhzhia route. In Manhush (15km from Mariupol) a check-in procedure became mandatory. There are many examples of dactyloscopy certificates, here are some of them:

After the seizure of the central part of the city, fighting for which lasted from about 18 March to 7 April (not counting air strikes and shelling), the city gradually began to be covered by roadblocks. A number of officials said that the occupation forces were going to restrict the movement of the city and temporarily suspend entry and exit in order to better filter out local residents. This is what Mariupol mayoral advisor Petro Andryushchenko reported on 16 April and 8 May. However, there is evidence that from at least the beginning of April 6, filtration became mandatory for any stay in the city. We also found similar reports from 9 April.

In a report dated 18 April, another source said that his loved ones had obtained a pass that allowed them "to move around the city".

On 29 April, an advisor to Mariupol mayor said that filtration measures in the city had been stepped up. Thus the occupiers introduced new checkpoints in the middle of the city, where they also carry out additional checks.

How does filtration work?

Filtering is compulsory for everyone aged 14 years and over who lives in, enters or leaves the city. It can be divided into three types: out-of-town filtration; in-town filtration; and additional male filtration in certain areas.

The first was told to Hromadske journalists by 17-year-old Maria Vdovichenko, who was travelling from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia with her parents:

The camp is not some kind of settlement, it's just columns of cars. There were 500 cars in front of us and thousands more behind us. It was forbidden to get out of the cars, look for food, water, go to the toilet. There were soldiers with guns everywhere, threatening us, checking us, making sure everyone was in place... We spent two days in the car waiting for our turn.

The filtering works like this: they have a roadblock. They check every pocket, glove compartment, boot, every bag. They check people's clothes and everything underneath. The men are undressed in the street near the cars.

I heard conversations between them [the Russian military]: "And that non-passer, where did you put him?" - one asked the other. "Yeah, I shot him. Ten people, maybe more. I don't count, I'm sick of it".

They took my fingerprints, scanned my documents, checked my phone. They asked provocative questions. About the authorities, about Ukraine, about my own positions... They took my passport and saw that I was 17. They didn't like me, I looked too young, and they were just looking for some young girls.

He [my father] was also asked for his documents, fingerprinted, stripped and searched. They started interrogating him, pressing him morally. At first they were pushing him. When they saw that his phone was empty, they started asking questions: "Why is the phone empty? What are you hiding? We don't believe you!" And they just hit him over the head. He doesn't remember who, how or with what. He remembers how he had already found himself on the street.

Evidence of large queues occurs regularly. Thus the already mentioned source who tried to enter Mariupol was 2273 on the list at the filtration point. Another in the same numbers reported a queue of over 5,000 people to be filtered out of the city, with a screening rate of 20.

We can also see queues of cars in propaganda videos distributed by "DPR" combatants.

The problem became significant enough that it led to corruption. For example, one of the collaborators, the renegade police officer Valentin Popov, was, according to media reports, detained by the FSB for taking bribes when leaving the city.

Phone checks are a frequent occurrence, as witnessed by other sources. Volunteers who regularly evacuate people out of the city in their cars also point to the need to "delete everything unnecessary from the phone".

For those who remain in the city, there is also a filtering system. Special offices are opened in the former district police stations. There are four of them in Mariupol. A total of 9 such filtration points are known to exist: 4 in Mariupol; former district police stations in Manhush, Nikolske and Bezymenne; and 2 filtration points at checkpoints in Manhush and Bezymenne.

Camps and deportations

However, there are far worse cases that go beyond the notion of humane treatment of civilians. These are male filtration camps. In contrast to roadblocks, these filtration points are real camps where civilians are forcibly detained.

The first information about the filtration camps appeared tentatively on 22 March, when Maxar published a satellite image of the camp in Bezymenne, 30km from Mariupol. According to the militants, it is a tent camp designed for 450 refugees from Mariupol.

The coordinates of the camp are 47.107741,37.938869

In earlier freely available pictures, you can see that there are no tents at this location.

Another camp, according to eyewitnesses, is in the village of Nikolske. "It was like a real concentration camp," Oleksandr, 49, who was in such a camp with his wife, told the BBC. Oleksandr and his wife Elena were fingerprinted, photographed from all sides and interrogated for hours by Russian security forces "like in a prison," he says. It is difficult to confirm this information precisely. However, according to reports in a local chat room, people are indeed looking for missing relatives in the school building in Nikolske (coordinates - 47.202857380854134, 37.31652705368871).

These camps might indeed have been considered temporary accommodation for displaced people if it were not for numerous testimonies about restrictions on the movement of its residents. Back on 8 April, Mariupol mayor Vadym Boychenko said that about 31,000 Mariupol residents had been deported to Russia, through such camps. There, in addition to the standard interrogation procedure, fingerprinting and phone checks, deportees have their documents taken away, insistently offering them refugee status in Russia. They are then bussed to various, even the most remote, regions of Russia.

The interviews of Mariupol residents who were able to get to Estonia confirm this. The route from St. Petersburg to Narva is one of the main ways to avoid forced settlement for those who do not want to stay in Russia.

An example is a comment made to the Estonian media by a girl called Valentina who was able to travel from Mariupol to Estonia, bypassing occupied Melitopol and Crimea:

Their [deportees] passports are taken away on the grounds that it is necessary to draw up documents and you have no right to leave Russia for two years. I saw guys being taken out and put on a bus without even answering the question: where are they going? Where will they be housed? What kind of work awaits them? There was no future. So they put you on a bus and take you in the direction they think is right. For me this is forced deportation.

That this is a regular practice rather than an exception was confirmed by Estonian authorities. Local police and border guards confirmed that they are in contact with Ukrainian refugees fleeing from Russian territory. Transport companies have also stated 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 fleeing Russia:

"More than 50 per cent of our passengers are Ukrainian war refugees who have arrived in Russia from Ukraine and are travelling by bus to Estonia from St. Petersburg to stay here or travel on," the statement said.

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 sent to Russia and allowed to leave on their own after arriving there," the Narva police said. This information was confirmed to us, on condition of anonymity, by a number of interlocutors who are currently in Tallinn.

In total, according to investigative journalists, some 95,000 residents of Mariupol were taken to Russia (and occupied Crimea). Using information from local Russian media, they have mapped the camps where Ukrainians live, 66 in total. They stretch from non-government-controlled Crimea to Kamchatka, a remote region in eastern Russia, 10,500km from Mariupol.

Among the reception centres that, according to open sources collected by the analytical portal inews, house survivors of the Mariupol blockade is the Avangard Centre for Patriotic Education near Ivanovo in Ulyanovsk, a city on the banks of the Volga River. This centre, which specialises in "military-patriotic work" and promoting "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.

Another location that is totally perplexing is the complex of a former chemical weapons dump in Leonidovka, near the Russian city of Penza. It no longer appears to be an operational military base where the nerve agent arsenal was disposed of. According to media reports, it received about 600 Mariupol residents.

No right to leave

The men are being held in harsher conditions. On 16 April, information emerged about the forced removal of men from a number of settlements in Mariupol: Huglino, Volonterovka and Mirnyi. Several sources reported the existence of a camp in Bezymenne, which is located on the territory of the school. According to relatives, in these settlements, the Russian military took all the men without exception, even despite their advanced age and the existence of a certificate of filtration.

The school can be easily found on freely available maps. It is most likely the Bezymenne Comprehensive School (coordinates - 47.10218747993147, 37.9421315286972).

Upon arrival, the men's documents are taken away from them and their stay there is motivated by the "need to cleanse the city". Those forcibly detained have not been told the length of stay, and reports suggest that some men have been in filtration for more than a week. They were malnourished and forced to sleep in mountains of clothing brought to them as humanitarian aid.

On 3 May, the first pictures from the camp in Bezymenne appeared. They show a huge number of people forced to sleep in one of the school halls.

The meager diet of the camp is also shown.

Two days later, a photo from the filtration camp was also shown by the mayor's adviser, Petro Andriushchenko. According to his information, Russian troops forcibly removed about 2,000 men. The camps are set up in the school of Bezymenne and the cultural club of the village of Kozatske in the Novoazovskyi district.

The Mariupol residents have been illegally detained in the school and the club for the fourth week now. People sleep directly on the floor in the corridors. They are not allowed to leave the territory of the school and the club without a Russian military escort. The first case of tuberculosis has already been recorded at the school, and no one is receiving medical assistance. Therefore, the occupants have turned the gymnasium into an isolation ward, where people are locked up without medical care.

Confirming the authenticity of the photos is easy. In one of the still images from the video of the camp, you can see the school sign, which says Bezymenne and shows the numbers "19a". It is at 19a Mira Street that the Bezymenne school, where the Russian troops set up a filtration camp, is located.

The author of the video complains about the unbearable smell and that they have only one washbasin for 350 people.

Another photo published by “Mariupol Now” shows the word "MIR-NYI" written on the asphalt, indicating that civilians from the Mariupol settlement of Mirnyi were held in the camp. The inscription may have been painted by the prisoners themselves, or it may have been used by the camp's wardens for building.

Another video clearly shows the view from the window of the camp overlooking the Sea of Azov. From the location as well as the rectangular shape of the neighbouring building we can again identify the Bezymenne school.

Thus, we can claim the existence of at least 4 filtration camps on the territory near Mariupol. The school in Bezymenne is the main camp for holding men undergoing the filtration procedure. The tent cities of Bezymenne and Nikolske may serve as camps, but in addition to filtration they serve as an intermediate point for the deportation of Ukrainians. Although there are reports of a camp in Kozatske, we cannot clearly confirm which image was taken there.

Why are people forced to undergo filtration camps?

Before answering this question, it is worth realizing that filtration camps are not new to Russia. Russia successfully used such practices during the First and Second Chechen Wars. According to the Russian human rights organization Memorial, the total number of people who have passed through the filtration camps is at least 200,000, almost all of whom have been beaten and tortured, and some have been summarily executed. This is confirmed by Human Rights Watch. Apparently, the Russians have decided to use this practice in Ukraine as well, especially since human rights violations in the Chechen camps have not had any consequences for the Russian authorities.

There may be many reasons for the filtration. The first of them is the fight against information leakage. As we have written before, Russian troops have used both indiscriminate bombing of Mariupol and precision strikes on humanitarian targets. The destruction of the Mariupol maternity hospital and theatre building, where hundreds of civilians were sheltering (according to AP the death toll is about 600), drew worldwide condemnation. The footage from Bucha, where dozens of dead civilians were lying in the streets, was one of the reasons for the West to toughen its stance on Russia. One can imagine the horror that anyone would feel if they got to Mariupol, where, according to the local authorities, 20-25 thousand people were killed.

This explains the occupiers' desire to prevent information leakage from the city at any cost, as any photo from the city could become another proof of Russian war crimes. Corpses lying in the streets, mass graves in the yards, ruined buildings, people forced to eat pigeons to survive - these are the realities of the besieged Mariupol. And filtration is a way of hiding it. For example, Ukrainian journalist Viacheslav Tverdokhleb had to take his photos out on a flash drive wrapped in a candy wrapper. Otherwise, at the very least all the photos would have been erased or Viacheslav would have been sent to a penal colony.

Another reason is a check for "ties to nationalists," as one of the women who was filtered described it in one of Manhush's Telegram chats. Mayor's advisor Andriuschenko, said that people were checked not only for family ties to the military, but also for the fact of working in state institutions, possible participation in pro-Ukrainian rallies, etc. The existence of "execution lists" was reported by Foreign Policy on the eve of the war. They are partly confirmed by the numerous facts of abductions and murders of various officials and opinion leaders in many occupied cities of Ukraine: Bucha, Melitopol, Kherson. However, according to our evidence in Mariupol they did not become active until the end of March.

The story of the girl Alisa is a heartbreaking example. She is the 4-year-old daughter of a military medic who was sheltering with her mother in a bunker at Azovstal, the last stronghold of the Ukrainian garrison in Mariupol. A video of Alice sitting in the basement saying she wanted houses went viral on social media. Approximately on May 8, Alisa and her mother Victoria Obidina were evacuated from Azovstal to Ukrainian territory. However, during the filtration in Manhush, mother and daughter were separated. Alisa was able to be taken to Zaporizhzhia when her mother was illegally detained. There is no contact with her at the moment. There is information that she may be held in one of the pre-trial detention facilities in Donetsk region.

Another reason for the filtering is propaganda. It is no secret that the Russians have long instrumentalized propaganda and fake news for their own purposes. And filtering is a way to find new participants for their stories. For example, the pregnant girl Marianna, who appears in the already world-famous photos from the bombed-out maternity hospital in Mariupol. After the evacuation, she found herself in non-government-controlled territory. Immediately afterwards, on 1 April, a video emerged of her exposing the Ukrainian military and the air strike on the maternity hospital. Interestingly, prior to this, various fakes about her had been spread by bots on Twitter.

Similar exposés were filmed involving other medical staff in Mariupol. This most likely indicates that the Russian military and militants are conducting a special search for potential participants in propaganda videos at the time of filtering, as they are asked about their place of work, among other things.

Azovstal employees are also in demand. For example, in an interview with BBC Ukraine, Enver Tskitishvili, general director of the plant, said that their employees are stopped during the filtration and try to find out any information about underground tunnels and facility layouts at the plant. The information was confirmed by the Russian media itself, which published a video showing a former employee of the plant, Oleksandr Chuprin, giving up positions to the occupiers where Ukrainian defenders of the city might be sheltering.

What's next?

Today, the occupation administration is trying by all means to create a picture of the return of peaceful life in Mariupol, despite the ongoing humanitarian disaster. There is no doubt that Russia is trying with all its might to cover up the carnage that has been going on in Mariupol since the first days of the war. In the vicinity of Mariupol alone, satellite images from Maxar have revealed four mass graves. One is within the city limits and three others are located near the settlement of Mangush, in Vynohradne and Staryi Krym. According to journalists, they continue to increase.

According to Ukrainian Defense Intelligence, in early April, 13 mobile crematoriums were operating in the city, among other things, to burn the bodies of civilians lying in the streets.

Today, Mariupol is becoming one big concentration camp, unprecedented in its size in a modern history.