General Staff: Russian proxies in occupied parts of Kherson Oblast forcibly move 200 residents for 'filtration'
As of March 1, Russian occupying authorities forcibly took 200 residents of the village of Boiove near Henichesk "to an unknown destination" for so-called filtration, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces reported on March 3.
The "filtration measures" are interrogation procedures conducted by Russian forces with civilians on occupied Ukrainian territories, which may lead to torture and kidnapping.
The General Staff added that Russian mercenaries were moving into the houses of the forcibly displaced people though the majority of the village residents had refused to give up their plots to the Moscow-installed proxies in the region.
Ukraine liberated the southern regional capital of Kherson and its surrounding areas amid a long-anticipated counteroffensive in November. However, Kherson Oblast's settlements located on the east bank of the Dnipro River are still occupied by Russian troops.
A Conflict Observatory hub that collects and analyses evidence of Russian war crimes released a report on Aug. 25, which provides proof of forced deportation and filtration camps in occupied parts of Ukraine.
Using open-source information and remote sensing data, the researchers identified at least 21 filtration system locations in and around the partially occupied Donetsk Oblast alone. The "filtration camps" are reportedly used for processing Ukrainian civilians before they are forcibly sent to Russia.
