Russian Persecution of Ukrainians in Occupied Territories Continues

Ukraine’s National Resistance Center (CNS) reported on Thursday that Russian forces have set up a new 1,000-person filtration camp in which to process the residents of Ukrainian territories that Moscow occupied in 2024.

The CNS report says that the population from these areas are being forcibly taken there to check for any cooperation with Ukraine’s defense forces after which, once their loyalty is assured, they are compulsorily issued with a Russian passport.

The center goes on to say that it is tracking the filtration camp staff and has called on people to send information that will provide the evidence needed to punish those involved for the war crimes they have committed.

Russian authorities have been stepping up pressure on Ukrainians in the occupied territories since the beginning of the month when its Ministry of Internal Affairs announced the end of the issuing of passports in the occupied territories and warned that refusal to obtain a Russian document could result in deportation or other repressive measures.

CNS said that passporting is one of the tools of control and pressure that Russia uses against the local population. Under Russian law, those who do not hold its passport automatically are considered “foreigners” and may only remain on the territory for 90 days, after which forced deportation from their homes can be imposed.

Issuing passports is not used for assimilation but as a mechanism to gain access to residents’ personnel data, to record and control the population.

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Since the ending of “passportization,” Russian occupation forces have stepped up large-scale checks and searches of residents in the occupied territories, on the streets and in their homes or places of work. This includes examination of documents, phones, conducting searches, asking for information on neighbors and colleagues, as well as collecting information about individuals’ possessions, property, and ties to Ukraine.

It is likely that much of the “evidence” gained is used as the basis for selection for those transferred to the so-called filtration camp.

According to a US State Department report in September 2022, Ukrainian citizens are often strip-searched for “nationalistic” tattoos, camps, photographed, and have their fingerprints taken while at filtration camps. This is often a precursor to forced deportation that has led to possibly hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens, including unaccompanied children, being sent to remote regions in Russia.

The US said it has information that officials from Russia’s Presidential Administration are overseeing and coordinating filtration operations.