On the territory of the occupied Donbass there are at least 21 filtration camps set up by the Russian military for Ukrainian citizens. People are kept there in humiliating and inhuman conditions, Reuters writes , citing a Yale University study.
The Ukrainian side called the same figure two months ago. About 20 filtration camps in June, said the permanent representative of Ukraine to international organizations in Vienna Yevhen Tsymbalyuk. Then he said that Russia wants to turn the Donetsk and Luhansk regions into a "territory of lawlessness."
According to the report, which relies on satellite imagery and public data, Ukrainians in these camps are being detained, sorted and interrogated, both POWs and civilians. There are several types of such facilities: those in which citizens are registered, where they are kept, where they are interrogated and where they are held in custody. Markets, schools and buildings of former prisons are mainly used for this.
The conditions, the researchers write, “degrade human dignity.” People are treated cruelly and inhumanly, they use torture, there is unsanitary conditions everywhere, there is not enough food and water. The whole thing is described as a "human rights emergency".
On the territory of one of these camps in the “DPR”, researchers found an object resembling a cemetery – prisoners who died in Yelenovka could be buried there. The explosion in the colony happened on July 29, then 53 people died, 130 were injured. The Russian side claims that the Ukrainians attacked the colony - from the American HIMARS system. There is no confirmation of this.
The US State Department urged Russia to stop the practice of creating camps, saying that "Putin and his government will not be able to perpetrate these atrocities with impunity and indefinitely." The Russian embassy responded bystating that the report was a "fake".