Exclusive: A @theipaper investigation has uncovered 66 camps in remote parts of Russia where thousands of Ukrainians have been taken as regional officials follow orders from Moscow to disperse them across the country. 1/ inews.co.uk/news/putin-mar…
For the past month, I have been analysing dozens of Russian-language local news reports from Belgorod to Vladivostok and using maps to show how officials are taking Mariupol survivors to a network of Soviet-era sanatoriums, children’s camps, hostels and orphanages. 2/
The results are shocking and show the first evidence of a major operation to spread Ukrainians across Russia – at sites stretching across the Ural Mountains as far east as the remote Kamchatka Peninsula. 3/ 
🗨️Tanya Lokshina, associate director for Europe and Central Asia at Human Rights Watch told @theipaper: ‘There is ample evidence that thousands of Ukrainians were taken to Russia under duress. We are extremely concerned this is happening.’ @hrw 4/
This latest story in the @theipaper investigation into Russian camps comes after we revealed last month how Moscow had made an emergency order to move people from the war zone to regions including Siberia, the North Caucasus, the Far East and Crimea inews.co.uk/news/vladimir-… 5/
We can now show in detail how this order is being carried out. 6/
The sites identified by @theipaper – known in Russia as Temporary Accommodation Points or TAPs – include dozens of sanatoriums, former children’s wilderness camps and at least one ‘patriotic education centre’ which promotes a ‘commitment to serving one’s Motherland’. 7/
On the wild Kamchatka peninsula at the edge of the Pacific Ocean, 10 people including children from Kherson were placed in a dormitory of the Kamchatka Industrial College in Yelizovo following an eight-hour flight. About 200 people are expected in the region. 8/
Survivors from Mariupol have even been taken to a remote hotel complex near Vladivostok after a week-long journey to the very end of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The Mariupol mayor’s office says they have been left isolated, with no documents or money. 9/
Where figures are available, my analysis suggests there are 6,250 people in 38 of the camps, including 621 children. More than a third of the 66 camps contain people from Mariupol. If Russia has taken one million people from Ukraine, it could have thousands of these sites. 10/
Russian activists have also told me that while Ukrainians who want to get out of Russia are able to walk out of the camps, their remoteness and lack of money or documents means they face an almost impossible task to leave the country. 11/
A grassroots movement of Russians is helping Ukrainians who want to leave to buy train tickets and get to the border, with reports of people even trying to leave through Kazakhstan. At Nerekhta in Kostroma, 30 people are reported to have already left for Poland. 12/
Read the full @theipaper investigation into how Russia is taking Ukrainians from the war zone to remote camps via this link ⬇️ 13/ inews.co.uk/news/putin-mar…
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