By Galina Korol | 2024-03-20

KYIV -- Russian authorities and their puppets installed in the occupied territories of Ukraine are openly discussing the repression of residents.

Such misdeeds came to light in an interview last month with Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russian-installed governor of the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia province.

"Balitsky openly admitted that Russian authorities are forcibly deporting Ukrainian citizens who oppose Russia's invasion of Ukraine ... and possibly alluded to Russian occupation forces' summarily executing Ukrainian citizens," the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in a February 21 report.

"Balitsky justified these activities ... claiming that the forcible deportation of Ukrainian families was for their own benefit, as occupation authorities would have had to 'deal' with them in an even 'harsher' way in the future, or other pro-Russian citizens would have killed them," the report said.

In addition, Balitsky referred vaguely to "extremely harsh decisions ... a possible allusion to Russian occupation forces conducting summary executions of Ukrainian citizens," it said.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, made a similarly threatening comment last month, according to Kommersant.

Residents of occupied parts of Ukraine who undermine Russia "need to be exposed and punished, sent to Siberia. Just like that. For re-education in forced labor camps," he said.

Such statements are meant to intimidate inhabitants of occupied Ukraine, said Alena Luneva, director of advocacy at the Kyiv-based ZMINA Center for Human Rights.

"It's obvious that 'this deportation' will be used to put pressure on disloyal people and force them out," she told Kontur, citing video from Zaporizhzhia province that showed occupiers "allegedly deporting people through checkpoints towards territory controlled by the Ukrainian government."

"The idea of 're-education camps for adults', even for Russia, despite all its atrocities ... goes beyond all acceptable and unacceptable boundaries," she said.

Trying to squash Ukrainian identity

It is quite evident that occupation authorities are seeking to repress Ukrainian identity, said Yuri Sobolevsky, first deputy chairman of the Kherson Provincial Council.

The residents of occupied territories are enduring "intense" harassment, he told Kontur, citing "regular document checks as well as searches, interrogations and arrests."

"There are many cases where someone has been taken away and it is impossible to find out what happened to them," he said.

Sometimes, occupiers simply block entry and exit to an entire settlement, he said.

"It's usually small villages," he said. The occupiers "check every house and every person to see where he is registered ... security officers take people's personal electronic devices and connect them to their own laptops ... they are looking for people who send information to Ukrainian-controlled territory."

Covert deportation is happening in Kherson province, Sobolevsky said.

The occupiers create "very difficult humanitarian conditions in the occupied territories ... and invite people to leave," he said.

Those exhausted Ukrainians receive a housing voucher good for "depressed regions of Russia," he said.

But once when they show up, they are effectively "abandoned," he said. "That is, when they apply for some additional help ... there, they generally do not receive it. They are told that they already owe Russia for being there."

Waiting for revelations

It has become increasingly difficult to monitor happenings in occupied territory because residents fear being caught communicating to Ukrainian-held territory, Sobolevsky said.

But the truth will come out eventually, said Alexander Danilov, a lawyer for the Kherson-based foundation Mercy and Health who also represents the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union.

Danilov has recorded more than 200 instances of illegal detention and about 600 instances of unlawful enforced disappearances in Kherson province alone.

Kherson province residents recounted hard labor, rape and torture, he said.

In one torture chamber, "people there didn't get enough water for weeks," he said, citing eyewitness testimony that he collected. Those captives had to drink their own urine to survive.

"Dozens of people were held in a small area and had to 'relieve themselves' there. They had food only once every few days."

The jailers took away prisoners for torture. One tortured man "returned with signs of chemical and drug poisoning," said Danilov.

The man died in his cell, but his body was left there for several days.

Recording all these crimes forms the evidence base for future international trials, said Danilov.