At least 18 such centers have been identified in the Russian-controlled Donbass areas. According to civilian testimonies, acts constituting war crimes were committed there.
Special Envoy for Ukraine,
According to a report by the Media Initiative for Human Rights submitted to the OSCE on Wednesday, July 28, several “filtration centers” have been set up by the Russians in the occupied territories of Donbass. The organization collected testimonies from civilians describing acts constituting war crimes: strip searches, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture or mock executions. At least 18 filter centers were discovered in the Russian-controlled areas of the two Donbass regions, Donetsk and Luhansk.
The report states that this filtering process was carried out in all areas occupied by Russian forces. “These facts are being committed by Russians who are probably connected to the FSB. They look for patriotic tattoos, marks of weapon use on men’s bodies. They scan phones for compromising photos or messages. In some cases, they conduct violent interrogations to test the person’s loyalty to the occupied authorities,” explains Olga Reshetylova, coordinator of the Media Initiative for Human Rights.
Degrading treatment
These checks, which target men suspected of taking up arms or being undercover agents in particular, also target women or those underage to fight. In particular, they are placed at checkpoints where suspects can be detained for further checks. Suspects are then held for further checks. “At the Starobilsk police station they threatened me and said that they would throw me in prison. They brutally abused me, hitting me in the face, back and all over my body, says Yurii Berezovskyi, a man from Luhansk Oblast. They tried to reveal my alleged membership in the Ukrainian army.”
Some civilians went through this process for days or even weeks. During these checks, they were subjected to physical and mental pressure. Cases of executions have been registered, the report says. Victoria, a woman from Mariupol, was arrested with her husband in Bezimenne, Donetsk Oblast. “At half past eleven a soldier came into the room, called my husband by his last name and told him to go outside. It was the last time I saw him. His mother was trying to find out where they had taken him. They said nobody would tell us and he had to be shot.” Another woman, Mariya Vdovychenko, recounts a conversation between two separatist Donbass soldiers in the village of Manhush, where she was interrogated: “What did you do to those who have passed filtration?” ; “I killed 10, then I stopped counting, it was boring.” She recalls her knees starting to tremble when, in the room where she was being held, a soldier lying on a mattress walked over she said, “You don’t love her? There will be other women, we will find something. She was pushed outside, but then, she says, they beat her father. “As a result, he’s lost sight of one eye and the other sees like through a plastic bag,” she said.
There were 40 of us in a cell, 30 of us slept while the others stayed.
Oleksii, imprisoned in a prison in Olenivka
For some, the vetting process has taken them to detention centers where cases of degrading treatment, torture and even murder have been reported. “I saw what they did to the Ukrainian military; they tortured her with electric batons. There was no talk of a Geneva Convention,” reports Oleksii about the deeds in an internment camp in the Donetsk region. He was transferred to a prison in Olenivka: “The living conditions there were terrible. There were 40 of us in a cell, 30 of us slept while the others stood.” The detainees were rationed on water, had no sanitation facilities and, according to Oleksii, were “constantly beaten”.
In Nikolske, Zaporizhia Oblast, where residents of Mariupol were subjected to this filtering process, there is evidence of torture. “They showed me Serhii twice,” says Iryna Dubchenko. The first time before interrogation, his hands were tied and he was beaten. Then, after the interrogation, he was already sitting on a chair without handcuffs. I noticed that he could no longer get up.
“We demand that these illegal practices stop,” Olga Reshetylova told a delegation of 30 OSCE countries the day after the report was presented in Geneva. The international community must put pressure on Russia to allow the presence of independent international organizations like the Red Cross in these filter centers.”
The list of “filtration centers” is not exhaustive, the NGO specifies. According to the General Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, civilians from the occupied city of Rubizhne in Luhansk were taken to filtration centers in Starobilsk, Luhansk and Sorokyne, while people from Popasnaya were taken to Pervomaisk and Kadiivka. Other information mentions a filtering center set up in the village of Velyka Lepetykha, Kherson Oblast. In addition, cases have also been reported on Russian territory.
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