Ukrainians continue to flee their country despite the partial withdrawal of Russian troops. Most are heading west, seeking refuge above all in the countries of the European Union.
But the Russian Ombudsman, Tatiana Moskalkova, has highlighted that the Russian Government has received some 500,000 refugees from Ukraineof which some 20,000 are in temporary accommodation centers.
Moskalkova assures that the refugees receive all the necessary services and they are grateful in the videos released by Moscow.
“The Donetsk People’s Republic militia came to tell us that we had five minutes to pack. But we didn’t have much to take with us. We just left,” says Yelena Krylova, an evacuee from Mariupol.
Some of them say they did not know where they were going to be evacuated and denied being pressured by pro-Russian militias. Others say they want to establish a new life in Russia and are grateful to have escaped the war, as is the case of Valeriya Storozh, who also escaped from Mariupol.
“We are waiting to get Russian citizenship to continue living our lives, to build a new life. Mariupol is over for us,” he says.
Thousands of missing children and ‘filtration camps’, denounces kyiv
But while the Kremlin says it has opened a process to legalize those who flee to their country. The Ukrainian authorities denounce that Russia carries out forced deportations, and that it would be around 20,000 people per day.
“These are mass deportations, filtration camps, it is a constant attempt to destroy all those who support the national idea. Today, more than 500,000 Ukrainians have been forcibly displaced. You can imagine what this represents,” declared President Volodymyr. Zelensky.
According to the kyiv government, adults are taken to so-called “filtration camps” to be converted into cheap labor.
“Now there is a filtration camp in the Donetsk region, where there are more than 10,000 of our citizens. They are questioned about their interests, about their support for Ukraine or the Russian Federation,” said Ukrainian Ombudsman Lyudmila Denisova. . She also warns that at least 130,000 children have been taken to Russia.
Moscow, for its part, alleges that orphaned children will be taken in by Russian families.
