About 90 Ukrainian citizens who are subject to deportation have been living in the Temporary Detention Center for Foreigners in Voronino, Smolensk region, for the fifth month now. Most of them are former prisoners, but there are some prisoners who are not convicted. Among them, 12 women, as well as people with AIDS and tuberculosis, are being held. This was told to ASTRA by one of the people there.
“There are many patients — AIDS, tuberculosis, they need constant therapy, but this is not provided here. Several people can barely walk anymore, one has hanged himself… They are all sitting together in cells. Women are forced to work in the canteen, clean all the rooms of the Central Military District,” Anatoly says in a conversation with ASTRA (the name has been changed, — note ASTRA).
According to Anatoly, there are 23 cells in the Center, each with two bunk beds. “Constantly in the cell, under the surveillance camera, in the morning walk for 40 minutes. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are served in the dining room,” Anatoly says.
The man said that all those subject to deportation were taken from different regions to the Central Military District in Voronino at the end of April. They claimed it was for a few days. Before that, the man was offered to sign for voluntary return to Ukraine. As a result, only six got to their homeland, and, as he claims, “they seem to have been forced into a military exchange.”
The center’s management claims that Ukraine refuses to accept its citizens.
Anatoly came to work in Russia even before the full-scale invasion. However, in 2022, the man, according to him, had a conflict with an employee on the subject of war, which ended in intensive care for him.
“We did not agree on our political views on “SMO”. The conflict began with his words: “Our guys are dying for you there, and you’re holed up here.” I explained to him that he was a dumb, brainwashed sheep… He stabbed me in the chest with a kitchen knife.
When I was transferred from the intensive care unit to the ward, a whole delegation came to me: a prosecutor, the head of the Federal Migration Service, an investigator and an operative. The FMS came to the conclusion that I was in Russia illegally, sued, and they brought me an expulsion order. When the attacker was tried, I was already in the temporary detention center for foreigners. I participated in the meetings via video link. As a result, he was sentenced to 5 years of strict regime and 350 thousand rubles were paid to me [the man could not send confirmation]. But they didn’t pay me anything.
I’ve been caged like an animal for four years for nothing. I worked honestly for a living. But Russia attacked Ukraine and I became a dissident outcast,” he added.
ASTRA confirmed Anatoly’s identity, he was indeed born in Ukraine and moved to the Russian Federation. Judging by the data leaks, he received a criminal record in his homeland more than ten years ago. The man claims that he had no problems with the law in Russia.
According to Mikhail Savva, a permanent expert at the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties, “representatives of the Russian authorities openly lie to these Ukrainians when they talk about Ukraine’s refusal to accept them.”
“Currently, the Russian Federation deports people only through Georgia. But the Georgian border guards are holding them in the basement of the unfinished terminal. It can accommodate a maximum of 20 people, but sometimes 100 live there. However, the Russian Federation cannot bring more than 800 people there at the same time, who are waiting in the halls of Russia. Ukraine offers direct transmission, through quiet sections of the Ukrainian-Russian border or through Belarus. But Belarus does not want this, and the Russian regime does nothing to influence its ally. This situation is an indicator of the weakness of the Russian government. They are frankly bad managers. In the first exchange following the talks in Istanbul, the Russian Federation cheated and handed over several such persons to be deported. Using an exchange as a method of deportation is the highest level of arrogance,” he said in a conversation with ASTRA.
