U.S. Says Kremlin Officials Overseeing 'Filtration Operations' For Ukrainians

The U.S. has information that officials from Russia's presidential administration are overseeing and coordinating filtration operations, in which civilians and prisoners of war from Ukraine are detained, interrogated, and, at times, forcibly deported to Russia, top U.S. officials and experts told reporters during a special briefing organized by the State Department's Brussels Media Hub.

"We also know that Russia is using advanced technology to facilitate filtration processes, including for the purposes of collecting data on Ukrainian citizens," Dr. Emma Gilligan, a senior expert with the State Department's Office of Global Criminal Justice, said.

The Kremlin and its separatist allies in Ukraine have forcibly transferred hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to Russia since the start of the war, according to U.S. officials and investigators, sending many through a vast and punitive "filtration" system that includes detentions, interrogations and mass data collection.

Ukrainians who go through the system have had their phone contacts downloaded, fingerprints and photographs taken and passport numbers collected, according to the Yale report, which was published last week.

The researchers said they found "with high confidence" that Russian and allied forces in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine have used 21 sites for "filtration operations."

"This report doesn't represent the end of the story on filtration. It actually represents the beginning..  We know that there are other filtration operations happening in other oblasts," said Nathaniel Raymond, Executive Director of Yale's Humanitarian Research Lab.

"We know there are additional facilities within Donetsk and elsewhere related to the system that we identified that we haven't been able to fully document yet." he added.

According to Matthew Steinhelfer, State Department's deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau Conflict and Stabilization Operations, the unlawful transfer and forced deportation of protected persons is "a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilians and constitutes a war crime"

"Accountability is imperative in the face of such crimes and the United States and our partners will not be silent" he said.

Asked by TURAN about U.S. investigations into war crimes, including through the State Department's Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group, Dr. Gilligan said in a unified effort, they are supporting international and regional mechanisms.

"We are supporting the investigation from the International Criminal Court into atrocity crimes in Ukraine.  We continue to support our colleagues at Eurojust through the joint investigative teams.  And also, we are supporting prosecution of crimes in sort of domestic or national jurisdictions," she explained.

Alex Raufoglu

Washington D.C.