Russia's Filtration Operations Against Ukrainians 'Horrifying' — U.S.

Washington on Wednesday alleged that top Kremlin officials were sending out lists to Russian forces of Ukrainian civilians targeted for a sprawling network of detention and deportation facilities, TURAN's U.S. correspondent reports.

The new allegations come just days after the State Department accused members of Putin administration of 'personally overseeing and coordinating' Russia’s “filtration camps” for Ukrainians.

“We are further aware that the Russian presidential administration officials are providing lists of Ukrainians to be targeted for filtration and receiving reports on the scope and progress of operations,” Vedant Patel, Department's deputy spokesperson, said on Wednesday during his daily press briefing.

The U.S, government has obtained newly downgraded information, including maps from the Director of National Intelligence of the alleged filtration sites on how Russia is “using dedicated information technology to support filtration operations, including online databases, tools, equipment to support the gathering of biometric data and facial recognition and tracking and monitoring of Ukrainian cell phones,” Patel said.

The State Department assesses that Moscow believes the filtration network is "crucial" to its efforts to maintain influence over territory it currently controls in eastern and southern Ukraine.

“And we demand that Russia halt its filtration operations immediately and allow the UN, independent observers and humanitarian and human rights organizations access to these filtration sites,” Patel added.

The filtration system is "a massive campaign that the Kremlin has launched to imprison, forcibly depart or disappear those Ukrainian citizens Moscow decides could be a potential threat to their control over Ukraine," Patel said.

Last month, researchers from Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab also published a report documenting at least 21 facilities that are part of Russia's filtration system in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk People's Republic, which is territory governed by Moscow-backed pro-Russia separatists.

The filtration system contains registration, holding, interrogation, and detention facilities for Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war, according to the researchers.

Washington believes that Russian authorities have so far forcibly deported between 900,000 and 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens from their homes to Russia.

“We have evidence that hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens – including children – have been interrogated, detained, and forcibly deported, and some of them sent to very remote areas,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. Ambassador to the UN, said on Wednesday, calling Russia’s filtration operations “horrifying.” 

“A growing number of eyewitnesses and survivors of 'filtration' operations tell stories of threats, harassment, and incidents of torture by Russian security forces. They’ve had their biometric data captured, identification documents confiscated, and all means of communication cut off. They’ve been subject to invasive searches, interrogation under inhumane and demeaning circumstances. It really is horrifying,” she said. reporters.

"So why are they doing this?,” Thomas-Greenfield later asked during her remarks to the UN Security Council. “The reason is simple: to prepare for an attempted annexation.”

Thomas-Greenfield outlined the filtration process for members of the SC. “You’re stripped of your clothes, you are interrogated, you’re beaten. You hear gunfire and screams from rooms next door. Others deemed more threatening are being tortured and killed. Because you are fighting age, you’re asked to fight for Russia,” she said.

“When you refuse, you’re given a Russian passport and set deep into Russia against your will far away from your family and with no means to communicate with anyone you know or love. You’ve been filtered,” she added.

Alex Raufoglu

Washington D.C.