Controversy over forced immigration… Russia “all voluntary migration”
▲ Cyclists pass by an apartment building in Mariupol, a port city in the southeastern part of the country that was damaged by shelling after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 2022.4.22 TAS Yonhap News
Hundreds of residents of Mariupol, a port city in southeastern Ukraine who have been displaced by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have recently relocated to Russia’s Primorsky Krai.
According to the Russian Far East regional media on the 26th, 308 residents of Mariupol arrived at Nakhodka Station in Primorye on the 21st. Many of them are said to be women and children.
Arriving at the station, they headed for temporary accommodation in nearby Wrangel.
Miroslava, a former employee of the Mariupol Waterworks, who arrived in Nakhodka with her husband, told the story of the long journey she had gone through. Miroslava, who was born in Russia, said, “I stayed for a few days in a village 30 km from Mariupol, then moved to Bezmennoe in Donetsk Oblast and stayed there for 11 days. I came here through it,” he explained.
Victor, who said he had fled Mariupol with his family on the 27th of last month, told the local media, “I want to find a job as soon as possible.”
A woman sits with a distraught expression in the front yard of a residential complex destroyed by indiscriminate bombing by Russian troops in Mariupol, southern Ukraine, on the 18th (local time). After being under siege by Russian forces for more than six weeks, more than 90% of the city’s infrastructure has been destroyed, leaving its residents without food, water and electricity. 2022.4.19 Mariupol Reuters Yonhap News” style=”padding:0px;margin:0px”>
▲ A Ukrainian woman devastated by the ‘destroyed place of living’
A woman sits with a distraught expression in the front yard of a residential complex destroyed by indiscriminate bombing by Russian troops in Mariupol, southern Ukraine, on the 18th (local time). After being under siege by Russian forces for more than six weeks, more than 90% of the city’s infrastructure has been destroyed, leaving its residents without food, water and electricity. 2022.4.19 Mariupol Reuters Yonhap News
According to Primorsky authorities, there are currently 14 temporary accommodations in the area. This is said to be capable of accommodating 1,350 migrants from the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and other regions of Ukraine. Authorities say all of the migrant children receive kindergarten and school education, He said that he would be able to receive education normally even if he moved to a new location.
Earlier, the Ukrainian government claimed that Russian troops broke their promises, disrupting humanitarian access in Mariupol, and that many of the residents were forcibly relocated to Russia. “Russia has forcibly relocated the residents of Mariupol to the Russian Far East Krimorsky Oblast (Primorsky Krai), 8,000 km from mainland Ukraine,” Lyudmila Denisova, head of the Human Rights Committee of Ukraine’s parliament, said in a telegram.
The Ukrainian government estimates that the Russian government has deported about 45,000 Ukrainians to Russia since the start of the war under the guise of humanitarian evacuation by the beginning of this month.
▲ Pro-Russian rebel soldiers on the street of Mariupol, Ukraine
A civilian walks among pro-Russian rebel soldiers on the streets of Mariupol, a port city in southern Ukraine, on the 17th (local time). The Russian army and pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine claimed to have effectively occupied the strategically important Mariupol. 2022.4.18.
Reuters Yonhap News
Russia, on the other hand, is of the view that although it is true that Ukrainians are entering the country, they are all voluntary migration.
The Russian army declared that it had captured Mariupol on the 21st and presented a two-step goal of taking complete control of all parts of Donbas in eastern Ukraine and the south. Mariupol is a strategic point connecting the Donbas region, where pro-Russian separatists claim independence, and Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014 by force. Administratively, it belongs to the Ukrainian Donetsk Oblast.
As Russia aims, if Russian forces occupy all of southern Ukraine, Russia will complete the land corridor connecting Donbas and Crimea. In addition, there is the possibility of securing an additional route to Transnistria, Moldova.
By Son Ji-min
