Over 3,000 Mariupol residents held in ‘filtration jail’ in Donbas over pro-Ukrainian stance, says mayoral advisor

Mariupol, April 22
Mariupol, April 22

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He said Mariupol residents were being held in the premises of former penitentiary No. 52 in the village of Olenivka in Donetsk Oblast.

"At least 3,000 Mariupol residents are being held in the Olenivka prison, in this filtration jail," Andriushchenko said.

"It’s only because they have an active pro-Ukrainian stance. Isn't this repression, political persecution?"

The advisor said that Russian troops were once again intensifying repression throughout the Mariupol area and in the city itself.

"They're actively looking for people who have a certificate of participation in hostilities since 2014. And they are taken to Donetsk in the same way, i.e. not to Olenivka, but to the 'glorious' Isolation (torture prison)," he said.

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Since the beginning of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian invaders have been deporting Ukrainians to Russia and the Moscow-controlled statelets in Ukraine's Donbas, blocking Ukrainian humanitarian corridors and setting up concentration camps through which those with pro-Ukrainian sympathies and veterans of the eight-year-long war with Russia are “filtered” from the rest of the inmates.

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The fate of those who are filtered is unknown.

According to Russian media, more than 1.2 million people have been deported to Russia since February 2022, of whom 210,224 are minors.