According to local authorities, Russian forces are holding about 27,000 Ukrainians in “filtration camps” near the besieged city of Mariupol.
The filtration camps along the Mangush-Nikolske-Yalta line are designed to prepare Ukrainians for deportation to Russia, according to Petro Andriuschenko, an adviser to the Mariupol mayor.
The report coincides with warnings from the Mariupol City Council and the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry that Russians are using screening camps in the Donetsk region from Bezimenne to Dokuchaevsk, forcing civilians there en masse and taking their documents.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has been working to trace Ukrainians’ allegiances in the filtration camps, such as whether they worked with law enforcement or with Joint Forces Operations, the directorate said. Some reports show that the Russians downloaded data from Ukrainians’ phones and took their fingerprints in the filter stores before shipping them to Russia.
US officials warned in the run-up to Russia’s invasion this year that Russia could round up Ukrainians, send them to camps and try to make them disappear to eliminate the resistance.
And just as US intelligence has been spot on about Russia’s intentions in Ukraine before, their predictions appear to be spot on here as well. Since the beginning of the war, more than 45,000 people have been deported to Russia, said Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Iryna Vereshuk.
Russia has long used filtration camps during the war, human rights watchdogs say. According to Human Rights Watch and witnesses, Russians tortured, beat, and raped Chechen civilians in filtration camps in Chechnya in 2000 and during the Chechen wars. In these cases, those who escaped said the Russians used filtration camps to try to “disappear” individuals.
The Biden administration has criticized the camps.
“Every day we see more and more how little Russia respects human rights,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said earlier this month. “I don’t need to spell out what these so-called ‘filtration camps’ evoke. It’s terrifying and we can’t look away.”
And now, just as the Russian government has denied allegations about Chechnya and the filter camps, the Kremlin is once again denying allegations of forcing Ukrainians into camps. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has called the reports “lies”.
While Russian forces are reportedly rounding up civilians in Mariupol for the camps, Ukrainians continue to try to push back Russian forces in Mariupol. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Monday that Ukrainians are still holding certain regions of the city while Russian forces conduct their offensive.
But the situation in Mariupol looks increasingly grim. After weeks of Russian forces wiping out the city from land, air and sea, the situation for those who remain is dire. Early in the invasion, Russian troops attacked a maternity hospital, killing women and babies. In recent days, Russian forces have pursued a theatre, surrounding the city and blocking humanitarian aid, running out of food and essential supplies. And this weekend, Russian forces called on Ukrainians to surrender.
If Mariupol fell, it would be the first major city to fall to the Russians.
Only a small group of soldiers seems to remain, fighting at Azovstal, an iron and steel works that the Russians are said to have blocked. The city of Mariupol shared a video on its Telegram account on Monday, apparently showing Russians bombing Azovstal. Women and children are crowding into bomb shelters, Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko said on Monday.
But for the time being, the Ukrainians are not giving in.
“Mariupol. Unbreakable and invincible,” Andryushenko, the adviser to the Mariupol mayor, told Telegram on Monday.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal reiterated Andriaschenko.
“The city hasn’t fallen yet,” Shmyhal said in an interview with ABC News.
But already, Russian forces are issuing ID cards to people who remain in besieged Mariupol, which they must wear to be able to go out on the streets, Andriuschenko said.
“Hundreds of citizens will have to queue to get a pass, without which next week it will be impossible not only to move between neighborhoods but also to be on the streets,” he said, warnings could be filtered out.
In the coming days, as Russia works to take Mariupol once and for all, Russia may resort to “counterinsurgency weapons” such as tear gas mixed with chemical agents that could weaken Ukrainians, the White House warned in a briefing last week.
While Russian forces have suffered numerous setbacks lately — failing to capture Kyiv and a large warship sunk last week — Russian forces are already upping the ante with a new one, according to Ukraine’s top security official Oleksiy Danilov Offensive in eastern Ukraine.
“This morning the occupiers tried to break through our defenses along almost the entire front line in the Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions,” Danilov said on Monday.