From the MT:
“U.S. Blasts Moscow for
'Forced Deportations' of Ukrainians to Russia”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony
Blinken accused Russia Wednesday of forcibly deporting up to 1.6 million
Ukrainians to Russia, accusing Moscow of a deliberate criminal operation to depopulate
parts of Ukraine. In a statement a day before the Ukraine Accountability
Conference in the Hague on alleged war crimes in Ukraine, Blinken said Moscow
is conducting a "filtration" operation to relocate Ukrainians from
the occupied east and south to areas deep inside Russia.
"The unlawful transfer and
deportation of protected persons is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva
Convention on the protection of civilians and is a war crime," Blinken
said. He said that estimates from sources including the Russian government itself
indicate that from 900,000 to 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens have been taken
from their homes into Russia, including to isolated areas in the Russian Far
East. The number includes some 260,000 children, some of whom are being
deliberately separated from parents to be put up for adoption in Russia,
Blinken said. He said the filtration program appears to have been planned early
and matches similar operations that Russia undertook in other wars, including
in Chechnya. "President Putin's 'filtration' operations are separating
families, confiscating Ukrainian passports, and issuing Russian passports in an
apparent effort to change the demographic makeup of parts of Ukraine," he
said.
Blinken said it is
"imperative" to hold the Russians accountable. "This is why we
are supporting Ukrainian and international authorities’ efforts to collect,
document, and preserve evidence of atrocities," he said. The one-day
Ukraine Accountability Conference on Thursday is being hosted by Netherlands
Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim
Khan, and EU Commissioner Didier Reynders.
^ Russia is committing Ethnic Genocide
in Ukraine (along with their other War Crimes there.) The more the US and the whole
world calls them out on it and eventually holds Russia accountable for their
crimes the better it will be for the Ukrainians who are being deported. ^
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