Hacking, humiliation and a ticket to Siberia – This is how Russia’s “filtering camps” aimed at Russianizing Ukraine work

When the Russian soldier ordered Olenaa to take off his shirt, he had been sleeping on the floor for three weeks already, cold and hungry.

The soldier said he wanted to check if there were any bruises on Olenan’s shoulder that indicated the use of a rifle.

Olena describes to the Guardian that she has also seen violent violence at the camp. He says he saw four soldiers start hitting a man interrogated at the next table because his keychain had the coat of arms of Ukraine.

From the camp, Olena was transit to Russia, from where she escaped to Georgia. He is one of the Ukrainians Russia has transferred to its territory since the attack began.

Professor specializing in Russian penitentiaries Judith Pallot According to the Alexander Institute at the University of Helsinki, forced relocations and filtration camps tell the story of Russia and its president Vladimir Putin the goal of reuniting Ukraine with Russia.

– It means moving people out of the place you want to Russianize and moving the Russians in their place, Pallot tells in a video interview.

So far, the occupied territories of Ukraine have not been inhabited by Russians. Professor Pallot is convinced that this is Russia’s goal if conditions calm down enough. Russification has already begun, for example, so that schooling will be entirely in Russian in the future.

The course of action is familiar from the history of the Soviet Union. For example, after World War II, the Soviet Union forcibly relocated thousands of kilometers from the Baltics and replaced them with Russian-speakers. Similarly, it worked in the Crimea.

Population displacement from the occupied territories is contrary to international law. There is no independent information on the number of those forced into Russia.

Russia completely denies the forced relocations. Foreign minister Sergei Lavrovin Russia has just evacuated about a million refugees from Ukraine for safety.

It is clear that a significant number have been forced to leave Ukraine against their will. The fate of many has been resolved in notorious filtration camps, where the occupier has distinguished between those in transit and those he considers harmless.

Fugitives from Russia have reported torture and humiliation in camps. Many have disappeared into the ignorant.

Russia, on the other hand, denies having anything to do with the filtering camps, and its puppet administration in the Doneski denies abuse at the camps, which it calls reception centers.

Interrogations of the camps can be described as torture. Ukrainian men who survived the Nikolsk and Bezimenne camps near Mariupol have said to the broadcaster BBC (switch to another service)that they were blatantly beaten, for example, for pro-Ukrainian Finnish updates.

According to Pallot, the filtering camps serve other purposes in addition to the Russification of Ukraine. Russia is keeping them in control of the occupied territories. In addition, interrogators are looking in the camp for convictions for demonstration trials that Russia is exploiting in its war propaganda.

– In this way, the enemy can be told that the enemy is neo-Nazi and that the military operation is a success, Pallot says.

For example, soldiers in the Ukrainian army, officials who refused to cooperate or protesters against the occupation are eligible. They are transferred by the occupier to remand prisons in Russia and Crimea or in the puppet republics established by Russia in Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

– Russian remand prisons have again exceeded their capacity, and one of the reasons is the people imported from Ukraine, Pallot says.

Filtration camps are also familiar from Russian history. They were established as early as the 1990s during the Chechen wars to distinguish from the population those suspected of rebelling. The fate of many who were camped at the time is still unclear.

Several Ukrainians who went to the camps this spring have been able to continue their journey to Russia after the security service, which manages the filtering camp, has determined that the person is safe.

At this stage, the destination is affected, for example, by whether the departed person has money or relatives and acquaintances in Russia. At least some of them have been able to continue their journey on their own, and many have crossed the border into Estonia or Georgia, for example.

The opposite is true for the poor or those without support networks. Russia has transferred several of them to reception camps, which are often located in remote areas of Russia, for example in the Far East, Siberia or the north.

Those displaced in these camps often rely on the help of local people and NGOs. Russia has also promised them money, but according to Professor Pallot, it has not always found its way.

In principle, the movement of residents of reception camps is not restricted. In practice, their residents typically do not have the resources or paperwork to cover up to thousands of miles home or to Europe.

According to Pallot, Russia is investing some of its forced relocations of Ukrainians in labor camps from which it is not possible to leave freely, but this information is still uncertain.

Those in the camps are to be settled permanently in these remote areas. According to Judith Pallot, Russia is thus trying to solve the severe labor shortage in the outermost regions.

– From Putin’s point of view, they are Russian anyway, because he does not consider the Ukrainians to be his own people, Pallot says.

This solution also has echoes of history. Russia and later the Soviet Union forced millions of people into Siberia and elsewhere in the north of the country. About 14 million prisoners passed through the Gulag prison camps, and in addition, entire populations were displaced far from their homelands.

According to Pallot, it is not surprising that Russia has resorted to the cruel methods familiar from the Soviet era.

– These are many tried and tested means of control and punishment, all of which are violent.

Now the means have been harnessed to serve President Putin’s goal of bringing the occupied territories under Russian rule once and for all.

The situation in the occupation zone is also very confusing for the Putin regime. A diverse group of people have ended up in the filter camps: Some people have tried to flee to the Ukrainian side, some to Russia. Some have ended up in the camp because they have opposed the occupation of Russian troops.

Some also end up in Russia directly without passing through a filter camp, or have already been killed on their way to the camp. Someone may have waited for the filtering even with relatives. In the camps, the segregation of people is very haphazard and practices vary from area to area.

According to Professor Judith Pallot, camps and population relocations are not part of a well-thought-out policy but improvised solutions to problems in which different parts of the Russian government have different goals.

For example, in terms of resettlement in remote areas, it would be useful to transfer men of working age to them as well, but they are easily transited from security camps to prisons by security services.

The balls also point out that many of the data on camps and population relocations are quite uncertain.

Those who have spoken to the Western media are almost invariably those who have had the opportunity to flee Russia. They may tell you things they think the interviewer wants to hear.

Much less information has seeped out of reception camps or prisons in remote areas.

The authorities are allegedly deporting Ukrainians seeking and arrested at the border by the authorities. It is not yet known how many will be able to continue their journey west from the camps.