Skip to main content

Trending

40,000 Ukrainians forced into labor in Russia, claims Mariupol official

Up to 40,000 Ukrainians deported from cities besieged by Russians have been forced into labor across enemy lines. Those deemed suitable are shipped to depressed areas of Russia in need of labor where they are forced to earn a living with temporary work permits.

March 28, 2022 7:39pm

Updated: March 29, 2022 11:00am

Up to 40,000 Ukrainians deported from cities besieged by Russians have been forced into labor across enemy lines, according to The Sun.

"We have made contact with people who have told us what is happening — they are being taken off to Russia to work for the state in depressed areas,” Sergei Orlov, deputy mayor of Mariupol, told The Sun.

“It is forced labour. They are having to work for Russia to survive.”

Orlov, who remains in a bunker in the besieged port city, also claimed that Ukrainian children were being separated and held by Russian soldiers.

"But worst of all, the Russians are separating children from parents when they take people out of our city,” said Orlov. “Hundreds of children from kindergarten age upwards are being held at a hospital in Donetsk and kept away from their parents.”

"They are trying everything they can to break us. Our city does not exist anymore. Now they are taking away its people.”

Mariupol is a key city in southern Ukraine that would allow Russia to create a land bridge between Crimea and the separatist areas in the east if captured. It has been leveled by Russian bombs as the invading forces shifted to targeting civilian targets.                                                                                             

Orlov said that Russian troops would force Mariupol residents to leave their shelter underground by threatening to bury them alive under their houses with bombs.

Captured civilians are processed using a system Russians called “filtration,” he claimed. Adults are asked for identification, while men are strip-searched for tattoos showing support for Ukrainian nationalism.

Any deemed suitable are shipped to depressed areas of Russia in need of labor, where their captors take their Ukrainian passports and force them to earn a living with temporary work permits.

Russia has been accused of forcibly taking over 400,000 civilians from Ukrainian cities to Russia, including 84,000 children.