![]() The Kremlin has consistently denied allegations of war crimes in Ukraine in what it calls a "special military operation" launched, it falsely claims, to "de-Nazify" its neighbor and protect Russia. "It is very widespread and very ongoing," Raymond said. ![]() Ukrainians in areas under Russian control have no choice but to accept a Russian passport if they want to survive, Humanitarian Research Lab Executive Director Nathaniel Raymond told Reuters. Ukrainians in occupied territory who do not seek Russian citizenship "are subjected to threats, intimidation, restrictions on humanitarian aid, and basic necessities, and possible detention or deportation - all designed to force them to become Russian citizens," the report said. The country's strongman leader, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, has claimed "they don't want to leave." But exiled Belarusian opposition politicians and the Ukrainian authorities say the children have been abducted.Ī series of decrees signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin compel Ukrainians to get Russian passports in a process the researchers call forced passportization. WATCH: Children are not only being taken from Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia, but also to Belarus. "These laws and tactics violate international law, including the prohibition on discrimination against people living under occupation based on nationality, and forcing people to declare allegiance to an occupying power, both illegal under The Hague Convention and the Geneva Conventions," the report said. The researchers said they identified laws and tactics used to make it impossible for residents to survive in their homes unless they accept Russian citizenship. The report was released by the Conflict Observatory program at Yale University's School of Public Health's Humanitarian Research Lab. Every inch of Ukraine’s territory is and will remain Ukraine,” Miller said. “State-sanctioned intimidation will not change the facts. Miller said Ukrainians living under Russian occupation “are and will remain" Ukrainian citizens. The tactic, which Miller said Russia has used before in Georgia, also provides pretext to further advance the Kremlin’s “imperial ambitions.” “Some parents have been threatened with losing custody of their children and possible deportation to Russia,” Miller said. Parents of children born in occupied parts of Ukraine who refuse to register their children for Russian citizenship face even greater difficulties, including reduced access to parental benefits, he said. “Those who refuse to do so face limited access to public services, employment, and property ownership with implications for their mobility, health, and livelihoods.” “The report details a disturbing campaign to compel residents to adopt Russian citizenship,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. The research says residents of the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhya regions are being targeted by a systematic effort to strip them of Ukrainian identity. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here. RFE/RL's Live Briefinggives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. The United Nations estimates that more than 3 million Ukrainian refugees have left the country to escape the fighting. The World Health Organization has said it has verified 43 attacks on hospitals and health facilities in Ukraine, resulting in the deaths of 12 people and injuries to 34. The investigative group said that documenting such cases was "very important in light of the statements by the Russian authorities that they do not seek to attack civilians and avoid hitting civilian infrastructure." The map is based on video and photographic evidence documented by Bellingcat, and charts by time and place several hundred incidents that have potentially harmed or affected civilians since Russia's war in Ukraine began on February 24.Īmong the incidents are "missile hits in residential areas, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and the obvious presence of injured civilians or the motionless bodies of civilians," Bellingcat said. The open-source investigative group Bellingcat has published an interactive map of civilian facilities destroyed by Russia in the course of its invasion of Ukraine.
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