Russia preparing to deport Ukrainians from occupied territories to Siberia

Russia is planning to allocate RUB 700 billion (about US$8.7 billion) to the Siberia Development Programme, which will include the mass resettlement of residents of Ukraine's temporarily occupied territories.

Source: Ukraine's National Resistance Center (NRC)

Details: Russia has already begun sending official letters to temporarily occupied areas demanding that employees be identified for "possible long-term business trips to the Far East". Schools, hospitals and utility providers have received such notices.

Quote: "Managers are forced to submit lists of 'employees not burdened by family circumstances' – a wording that, in essence, identifies the most vulnerable and those who can be most easily deported without significant public outcry."

More details: The NRC emphasised that this is a recreation of Soviet-era "organised recruitment" practices which were used to deport Crimean Tatars, Ukrainians, Chechens and other ethnic groups in the past.

Quote: "Siberia is devastated. Since Russians don't want to go there, the Kremlin has decided to build its 'new empire' with the hands of Ukrainians who have been torn away from their homes."

Background:

• Earlier, Russian soldiers forcibly took children from the occupied town of Bilovodsk in Luhansk Oblast to a military camp in Russia's Novosibirsk Oblast. In the tent city that the Russians call the Young Army Camp, children aged 11-17 are forced to undergo military training.

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