Why is Russia illegally deporting Ukrainians to Russia?

Over 500 thousand Ukrainians, including 121 thousand children, were forcibly deported to Russia from Ukraine's temporarily occupied territories. Serhiy Kyslytsia, Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, made the announcement.

The forced deportation began about two weeks before the Russian Federation's open military aggression. 

It concerns the eviction of Ukrainian citizens living near the demarcation line in the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions. This was done under the guise of a potential escalation of hostilities by Ukraine. As a result, the invaders started attacking.

Unfortunately, data on the number of deported Ukrainian citizens on the territory of the Russian Federation varies greatly. This indicates a disagreement between our officials' positions, as well as the impossibility of counting the number of deported people.

On March 29, the Central Intelligence Agency of Ukraine's Ministry of Defense reported that nearly 40,000 Ukrainians had been deported to the territory of the aggressor country. On April 12, Ombudsperson Denisova announced the deportation of over 700,000 Ukrainian citizens to Russia.

So far, 500,000 people have been deported.

Such a discrepancy in the data eliminates the process of recording the data of crimes committed by the Russian Federation.

Forcible deportation is classified as a war crime under the Rome Statute and is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions for the Protection of Civilian Persons (1949) and the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions for the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflict (1977). 

They consider the deportation or movement of all or a part of the occupied territory's population within or outside that territory to be a gross violation of international humanitarian law, which qualifies as a war crime.

The problem is that Ukraine has not ratified the Rome Statute and, as a result, cannot sue the International Criminal Court (ICC). 

Even though the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been investigating crimes against humanity in annexed Crimea and the occupied part of Donbas since 2015. Up to 1.5 million Ukrainian citizens have been forced to flee to Russia since the start of the hybrid war in 2014. 

I believe Russia is resolving several issues by "involving its compatriots," including forcible deportation.

First, this is now taking place within the context of information policy. Russia wants to demonstrate the peaceful nature of its military aggression against Ukraine. Of course, this is a lie. Second, this is how the Russian Federation tries to address the demographic crisis. Third, it attracts more qualified personnel, who should be integrated into the Russian environment. 

In comparison to representatives of Central Asian republics, there are no language, mental, religious, or other issues. 

At the same time, the Ukrainian economy is suffering enormous losses as a result of the aggressor's actions. 

However, to consider Russia's crimes against civilians at the international level, an internal investigation in Ukraine and legislative changes are required.

Dmitro Snegiryov