One day later Six months since the war in Ukraine began, a new report reveals never-before-seen information about Russia’s filter camp system in eastern Ukraine, in which civilians and prisoners of war are detained, interrogated and sometimes forcibly deported to Russia. The investigators also identified what they believe are graves near camps where POWs were held.
The camps, all located in the eastern region of Donetsk, have been identified by the Conflict Observatory, a US-funded partnership between Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab, the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative, artificial intelligence company PlanetScape Ai, and the software for mapping geographic information systems Esri. Their report used images from Telegram channels, commercial satellites and existing documentation to identify the locations of camps used by the Russian military for interrogation, detention and registration of Ukrainian citizens, some of whom are then forcibly deported to Russia.
“This is the first report that convincingly and with great confidence identifies 21 facilities engaged in the filtration of Ukrainian citizens,” said Nathaniel Raymond, co-leader of the Humanitarian Research Lab and a lecturer at Yale’s Jackson School of Global Affairs. An earlier intelligence report had previously identified 18 suspected filtration centers. “We cannot estimate on the basis of geospatial and OSINT alone how many are in custody and how many have come through. That is methodologically impossible. However, we feel that the scale here covers an oblast, the equivalent of a state.”
The filtering system, which US government reports indicate has increased in recent months, is particularly difficult for outside humanitarian and human rights organizations to assess. Only those authorized by Russian troops have been allowed access to the camps. However, reports of detainees released from filtration facilities indicate that they have faced interrogation and even torture. Former inmates have reported being held in cells so cramped that they slept in shifts, had contacts on their phones and had their biometrics collected, and separated from their families.
While there are no clear figures on how many Ukrainians have been forcibly relocated, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe estimated that by June 25, 2022, about 1.7 million people had already reached Russia. Many experts have described these tactics as genocidal.
“The forced deportations from Ukraine are an unlawful transfer of protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention and international human rights law,” said Matthew Steinhelfer, deputy assistant secretary in the United States Department of State’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations. “This is a war crime.”
“Eyewitnesses, survivors and the Ukrainian Attorney General have reported that Russian authorities have transported tens of thousands of people to detention centers in Russian-controlled Donetsk, where many have been reported to have been tortured,” US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said in a statement. was released last month. . While some people are being treated by Russian forces and then released, “evidence is mounting that Russian authorities are also reportedly detaining or disposing of thousands of Ukrainian citizens who do not pass the ‘filtration’. Those detained or ‘filtered out’ include Ukrainians who are considered threatening because of their possible ties to the Ukrainian military, territorial forces, media, government and civil society groups.”
