Russian forces have forcibly deported more than 500,000 Ukrainians, taking many to Siberia and the Arctic Circle, according to President Zelenskyy.
Reported by a Ukrinform correspondent, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made the statement in his address to the Parliament of Estonia.
He said: “As of today, over 500,000 Ukrainians have been forcibly deported. Just imagine how many it is! It is as if the occupiers decided to take the entire Tallinn away. The entire city. It is one-third of your population.”
Estonia currently has a population of 1.3 million, with the capital city of Estonia, Tallinn having a population of just 394,024.
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According to Ukrinform, Zelenskyy would also claim Russia is deporting Ukrainians to Russia’s remote regions while taking away their personal belongings.
The address to Estonia comes just days removed when UK newspaper The i reported Russia had made an emergency order last month to remove 95,739 Ukrainians to far-away regions.
While citing the Kremlin document that enacted the order, they claimed Ukrainians were being deported to areas such as the Siberian town of Magadan, the Arctic port of Murmansk, and the Caucasus regions of Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Dagestan.
The Ukrainian President also believed Russian officials were moving thousands of people from the heavily bombarded city of Mariupol to ‘filtration camps’ on the border.
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While addressing the Lithuanian parliament, Zelenskyy said: “There are mass deportations of people from the occupied areas. Hundreds of thousands of people have already been deported.
“They are placed in special filtration camps. Documents are taken away from them. They are interrogated and humiliated. It is unknown how many are killed."
The Mariupol City Council claimed more than 20 thousand people had been deported against their will.
Zelenskyy has been pleading with EU countries to find the means to stop the deportations and bring Ukrainians home.
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He said: "The European Union has the power to ensure this. The European Union must use this power.
“Until Russia returns forcibly deported Ukrainians until it returns thousands of stolen children, it should not receive any money from European states and companies.
“The European Union has no right to sponsor deportations.”
Jayden Collins