The Irish Times view on deportations of Ukrainians to Russia

The scale of deportations of Ukrainians to Russia is staggering – according to the UN about 2.8 million Ukrainians are in Russia and Belarus – up to 1.6 million, the US estimates, against their will. Ukraine’s National Information Bureau, which tracks missing and displaced children, says that of those, to date, nearly 14,000 are children.

Many deportees have been shipped to far-flung parts of Russia in what appear to be attempts to permanently resettle them. Russia says it is a humanitarian measure to protect civilians from conflict but only a minority are from the Russian-supporting community.

And the process is continuing apace. The Bloomberg agency has reported that Russian prime minister Mikhail Mishustin issued a government order in mid-December allocating up to ¤2.5 billion in extra spending for what Moscow calls “the potential resettlement” of residents from the Kherson region to Russia. Ukraine fears up to 100,000 people may be targeted.

Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, the removal or mass forcible transfers of civilians from an occupied territory to that of the occupying power or any other country is prohibited, regardless of the motive. The statute of the International Criminal Court defines deportation and transfer both as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

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Credible reports from returned and exchanged civilian prisoners of torture and summary executions are also deeply concerning. Ukrainian civilians abducted by Russia also vanish into a legal vacuum, where they are often held unofficially, in secret, and are not treated as prisoners of war, and so are not eligible for exchange when the two sides periodically swap captured soldiers.

This absence of official status in the Russian prison system also makes it practically impossible for representatives of international organisations, such as the Red Cross and UN agencies, to visit and check on the welfare of captives.

Russia’s war is a war on civilians and the vital infrastructure that sustains them, a war that breaks all the legal norms with impunity.