The report, seen by Reuters ahead of its publication on Thursday, cites commercial satellite imagery and open-source information to identify with “high confidence” the separate locations – including facilities that once served as schools, markets and regular prisons. It also locates possible graves in a prison complex. The Humanitarian Research Laboratory at the Yale School of Public Health that authored the report is a partner in a US State Department-funded Conflict Observatory launched in May to capture and analyze evidence of war crimes and other atrocities allegedly committed from Russia to Ukraine. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Nathaniel Raymond, the lab’s executive director, said the findings showed Russia and its proxies had set up a “filtering system” to sort people into Russian-held areas, which represented an “emergency for the Human Rights”. Reports of abuses had already emerged from the sites, including a prison complex near Olenivka, where 53 Ukrainian prisoners of war were reportedly killed in an explosion there on July 29. read more Yale researchers recently detected disturbances in the land consistent with individual or mass graves as early as April, the report said, matching the account of a former inmate who said inmates were forced to dig graves at the time. Although the investigators did not reach any conclusions about the fate of the Ukrainian prisoners of war in the prison, they also confirmed that other riots in other parts of the complex were occupied on July 27, before the explosion in Olenivka. The New York Times previously reported unrest at the complex in July. “The conditions are absolutely ripe for extreme abuse and in many cases, as we saw in Olenivka, we see indications that we may have a five-alarm fire,” Raymond said, adding that it was not known how many civilians passed through or were still being held at the sites. Russia’s defense and foreign ministries and its embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of expelling hundreds of thousands of people from Russian-held areas of Ukraine. Moscow has denied deliberately targeting civilians since it invaded Ukraine on February 24 in what it calls a “special military operation” and says it is offering humanitarian aid to those who want to flee. The Russian embassy in Washington said in July that the US claims about the detention of Ukrainians in occupied territories were an attempt to incite “Russophobia” and discredit the Russian armed forces. read more
“RESPONSIBILITY IS NECESSARY”
Thursday’s report focused on the Donetsk region, where Russia and its proxy the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic seized control of most of the city of Mariupol in March. The city’s mayor said in April that about 40,000 civilians from the city were forcibly transferred to Russian-controlled territory or transferred to Russia. The report found a system that brings civilians into conflict-affected areas, subjects them to registration and interrogation before they are either released, detained or transferred to Russia. Investigators have verified the 21 sites with at least five independent sources and believe at least seven other sites are part of the filtering system and could be verified at a later date, Raymond said. The US National Intelligence Council in June said it had identified 18 potential sites used for infiltration in Ukraine and western Russia. The State Department on Thursday in a statement again called on Russia to stop all filtering operations and forced deportations and to provide access to outside observers. “President Putin and his administration will not be able to engage in these persistent abuses with impunity. Accountability is imperative, and the United States and our partners will not remain silent,” the statement said. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Report by Simon Lewis and Daphne Psaledakis. Edited by Mary Milliken and Alistair Bell Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
