Ukrainians allegedly deported
Kyiv complains about forced recruitment by Moscow
4/24/2022 4:32 am
Ukrainian President Zelenskyy speaks of “concentration camps” from which Ukrainians, including children, are being deported to Russia. In addition, the Kremlin’s troops are forcing medical personnel to work for them at the front, under threat of the death penalty.
Ukraine accuses Russian troops of forced conscription of residents in occupied territories. In addition to young people, doctors in the Cherson, Zaporizhia and Kharkiv regions are also particularly affected, according to Ukrainian military intelligence. For example, medical personnel from the city of Vovchansk in the Kharkiv region were forced, under threat of execution, to treat Russian soldiers at the front. The information could not be independently verified.
In the Zaporizhia region, the Russian military and secret service agents were looking for people of draft age, the military intelligence continued. It is said that they should reinforce Russian units. The British Ministry of Defense emphasized in its update on the situation in Ukraine that any conscription of residents of occupied territories violates the Fourth Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilians in Time of War.
In addition, Ukraine accuses Russian authorities of transporting people from occupied territories deep into Russia. For example, 308 Ukrainians were taken by train from the long-besieged port city of Mariupol to the city of Nakhodka in the Russian Far East, 8,000 kilometers away, Lyudmyla Denisova, the human rights commissioner of the Ukrainian parliament, wrote in the online service Telegram. They are expected to obtain Russian identity papers and look for work. Ukraine has repeatedly criticized the fact that Russian troops only allowed exit to Russia in some escape corridors from embattled cities. Russia denies that people are being brought into the country against their will.
The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj specifically criticized the filtration camps set up by the Russian military, in which, according to the official statement, possible fighters are to be separated from civilians. “The honest name for it is different – these are concentration camps. The way the Nazis built them at the time,” Zelenskyj said in his daily video address. He criticized the fact that Ukrainians from these camps were also being taken to Russia. “Among other things, they deport children in the hope that they will forget where they come from, where their home is.”