Russian occupiers have deported more than 30,000 people from Mariupol to Russia - head of the Military Administration

KATERYNA TYSHCHENKO  — THURSDAY, 28 APRIL 2022, 17:12

The Russian occupiers have forcibly deported more than 30,000 Mariupol residents to Russia.

Source: Head of the Donetsk Military Administration Pavlo Kyrylenko during a briefing at the Ukraina Media Centre

Details: Kyrylenko said that the occupiers have no support from the population and therefore have to resort to tricks: people are being taken to "filtration camps" under the pretext that they are being evacuated to territories controlled by Ukraine.

"They take people to their so-called filtration camps, which are located near Mariupol. These are, for example, settlements along the coast of the Azov Sea. When they take people there, they divide them into women with children, and men. They divide them up according to age, and then they take away their documents which certify that they are citizens of Ukraine", Kyrylenko explained.

The head of the Donetsk Military Administration also added that the occupiers have been distributing certificates (drawn up according to their own templates) to Mariupol residents and then forcibly taking them to the territory of the so-called "DPR" [the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic] or to Russia.

Kyrylenko also said that today there is not a single settlement in the Donetsk region that is not under attack by the Russian occupying forces, but the Russians have not achieved strategic success.

85% of buildings in the Volnovakha district of Donetsk region have been destroyed or damaged, and 50% are beyond repair.

Also, according to him, the shelling continues in the settlements of Marinka, Krasnohorivka and Svitlodarsk. Large cities in the region, including Kramatorsk, Sloviansk and Pokrovsk, are being hit by missiles.

At the same time, according to the head of the region, the Russian army has not achieved any tactical or strategic successes in the Donetsk region and cannot cross the line of fortifications of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

According to Kyrylenko, 370,000 people remain in the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donetsk Region, not counting Mariupol residents. As of 24 February this year, 1,670,000 people lived in the region.

The head of the Donetsk Military Administration emphasised that local authorities are urging residents to evacuate.

Background: Russia said that since the beginning of the war it had "evacuated" more than a million people to its territory, including 183,000 children, "from dangerous areas of Ukraine" and certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk Regions that are temporarily occupied by Russia.