The U.S. Department of State has condemned Russia’s creation of filtration camps, identifying at least 18 camps in Ukrainian and Russian territory.
The report claims between 900,000 and 1,600,000 Ukrainian citizens were detained and deported to Russia. Some were sent to areas near the Baltics or Georgia, where a few escapees managed to cross the border into neighboring countries. Others have been reportedly sent into Russia’s Far East, far from Ukraine.
Russia’s filtration camps have a history rooted in the Chechen War, where Russia began a brutal suppression of Chechnya after the razing of Grozny. Filtration camps have reportedly popped up in Southern Ukraine, near Kherson and Mariupol, as well as detention facilities in Donetsk. Allegations of torture and summary execution are consistent with evidence that surfaced from crimes in Bucha, Irpin, and other liberated territories.
Russian state media hosts have recently engaged in dangerous and genocidal rhetoric, claiming a minimum of two million Ukrainians needed to ‘disappear’ to ‘de-nazify’ Ukraine. A growing number of countries have moved to classify Russia’s actions in Ukraine under the definition of genocide based on evidence in liberated territories. As Ukraine continues planning to conduct a major offensive to liberate Kherson, which has been under Russian occupation since the beginning of the war, a new scale of atrocities is likely to be unveiled across the region.
World Affairs International 