Experts explain that the goal of the Russian autocrat is to destroy the Ukrainian identity, for which he returned Stalin's bloody methods.
Russian troops by brute force sent tens of thousands of Ukrainians to Russia . Moscow says it is a “voluntary evacuation.” And Kyiv insists that these are mass deportations.
German experts explained to Focus why the Ukrainian side is right and the Russian side is boldly lying. For several weeks now, there have been reports that war criminal Vladimir Putin is forcibly deporting tens of thousands of Ukrainians to Russia and sending them to special camps. Russian troops are setting up safe corridors only in the direction of Russia, so that people in the war zone can escape the bombing and shelling only in the neighboring country. Now the US Department of Defense has confirmed that all this is really happening.
“We have evidence that Ukrainians are being deported to Russia against their will,” said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, adding that it was not yet known how many Russian camps there were for Ukrainians and what the conditions were.
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Focus also recalls that Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Lyudmila Denisova complained that more than 1.2 million Ukrainians, 200,000 of whom were children, had been forcibly deported to Russia since the start of the war. The Russian Defense Ministry insists that this is a “voluntary evacuation.” But Jan Klaas Berends, a professor of Eastern European history at the Leibniz Center in Potsdam, says Russia's interpretation of these events is a delusion. The expert insists that there is a lot of evidence that the deportation of Ukrainians is taking place. Berends also explained why Putin was forced to evict.
“Putin is trying to destroy the culture and identity of Ukrainians. The behavior of his soldiers, including the killing of civilians and deportations, fits into the notion of genocide, “said the German professor. repeats the practice of Stalin, who also ordered the mass deportation of foreigners, “Berends recalled.
Political scientist Andreas Heinemann-Gruder of the International Center for Conflict Studies in Bonn also sees a clear parallel between Stalin's and Putin's behavior. deportation.
“Stalin paranoidally saw in everyone a collaborator of the Nazis. And this paranoia is back again, “he explained, recalling the so-called filtration centers where Ukrainians are now being sent.
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People in the temporarily occupied territories are systematically searched in these centers. They are humiliated and interrogated, their phones and biographies are checked in search of the so-called “Ukrainian Nazis” invented by Moscow.
“Depending on the classification, Ukrainians are given different permits that define the regions for their future lives,” said Professor Heinemann-Gruder.
Those who did not pass the FSB test simply “disappear” and no one knows where. Other Ukrainians are being deliberately deported to remote, uninhabited regions of Russia, where they are being abandoned. The German expert also reminds that the Russian military is creating safe routes that lead only to Russia, thus leaving no choice for those who want to escape from shelling and bombing. According to him, this also falls under the classification of deportation.
All this is reminiscent of the times of the Stalinist USSR. Deportations were commonplace in the 1930s and 1950s. Using brutal methods, Stalin tried to increase his power by destroying his political rivals. Stalin also saw deportations as a way to suppress any dissatisfaction with his totalitarian regime. Given this story, Putin's brutal actions are not surprising. His strategy has been evident in Crimea and the occupied Donbass since 2014. People who refused to accept the occupation regime were ruthlessly persecuted. For example, Crimean Tatars were killed and expelled en masse from the Crimea. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi recently sharply criticized the actions of Putin and his troops.
Among other things, they are deporting children, hoping that they will forget where they are from and where their home is, “Zelensky said.
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