The occupiers have sent to russia up to 1.6 million Ukrainians. The enemy forces civilians to go through a “filtration” process involving invasive security screening, interrogation, family separation and detention.
Thousands of children have undergone the filtration process. There were 1,800 children in July only and some have been separated from their parents and placed up for adoption in russia, the New York Times writes with reference to the statement of the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, which she made at a U.N. Security Council meeting. The latter was requested by the United States and Albania to discuss the forced displacement of Ukrainians.
“Moscow was transferring Ukrainians “to prepare for an attempted annexation” and “to provide a fraudulent veneer of legitimacy for the russian occupation and eventual, purported annexation of even more Ukrainian territory,” the U.S. ambassador said.
She emphasized that russia’s actions amounted to a war crime and called on russia to grant access to international observers to investigate the camps and detention facilities where russia is holding Ukrainian civilians.
A report by Human Rights Watch also shows that documented there was a forcible transfer of Ukrainians from Mariupol and Kharkiv Region to russian territory or areas in Ukraine controlled by russia.
“Forced transfers and the filtration process involve distinct abuses against civilians,” the report said. The UN Human Rights Agency has also documented a large number of cases where deported Ukrainians, after being sent to russia, returned to their homeland through third countries.
Over 1,000 Ukrainian children abducted from Mariupol were illegally adopted in different regions of russia. We are talking about Tyumen, Irkutsk, Kemerovo and Altai.
More than 300 Ukrainian babies illegally taken out of their homeland are placed by russians in detention facilities in the Krasnodar Territory.