U.S. calls on Russia to halt forced deportations of Ukrainians, citing war crimes

Russian servicemen stand guard at the destroyed part of the Ilyich Iron and Steel Works in Ukraine’s port city of Mariupol on May 18, 2022.

The Biden administration called on Russia to release civilians that it says were forcibly deported from Ukraine.

The transfer and deportation of protected persons is a war crime according to the Secretary of State.

International legal standards and protections for humanitarian treatment during wartime are defined by the 1949Geneva Conventions.

More than one million Ukrainian citizens, including 260,000 children, have been deported from the US to Russia.

Russian authorities should allow Ukrainian citizens to be forcibly removed or coerced into leaving their country to return home, according to a letter written by deputy secretary of state Tony Blinken.

Surrendered servicemen of Ukraine’s national battalion “Azov”, which is an all-volunteer infantry military unit, are being transferred to Yelenovka in Mariupol, Ukraine on May 17, 2022. 

The nation's top diplomat urged Moscow to allow third-party observers into so-called Russian "filtration camps."

The initial reception areas where deported Ukrainians are photographed, fingerprinted, stripped, and forced to turn over their mobile phones, passwords, and identification are known as the filtration camps.

The disappearance of thousands of Ukrainian civilians who do not pass the deportation procedure was ordered by Moscow.

Ukrainians are considered threatening if they have ties to the Ukrainian army, territorial defense forces, media, government, and civil society groups.

He said that the Kremlin's program resembles similar operations carried out by Russian forces during other conflicts.

There is mounting evidence of Russian forces deliberately separating Ukrainian children from their parents, abducting children from orphanages, confiscating Ukrainian passports, and issuing Russian passports in order to change the demographic makeup of parts ofUkraine.

Residents of the city of Lysychansk cook food outside their houses, as the city is without electricity and water, in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas, on May 26, 2022, amid Russia’s military invasion launched on Ukraine.

Last week, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights warned that her office has gathered a lot of evidence that shows Russian forces have carried out killings and summary executions of Ukrainians.

More than 1,200 civilian bodies have been recovered from Kyiv, and more than 300 allegations of killings by Russian forces are being investigated by the UN.

The United Nations stripped Russia of its membership in the Human Rights Council after it was accused of torturing and killing Ukrainian civilians.

The bodies were found after the Russians left the area. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of war crimes when he visited the area. Similar reports of what happened in the suburb have come from other cities.

The military actions in Ukraine have been described as a special operation by the Kremlin.