Kyiv said that Moscow deported 1.2 million people to Russia, denouncing the existence of "sorting camps" in the Russian-controlled territories in eastern Ukraine, through which these "deportees" pass.
Michael Carpenter US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said on Thursday that "the United States estimates that Russian forces have transferred several thousand Ukrainians to these ‘screening camps’, and evacuated at least tens of thousands to Russia or to Russian-controlled territory, sometimes without informing evacuees of their final destination."
"We estimate that Russian forces forcibly transferred several thousand civilians to Russian territory," he added in a speech in Vienna.
The diplomat spoke of testimonies of "brutal interrogations" accompanied by "torture" inside these "screening camps", with the aim of identifying anyone who "has the slightest loyalty to Ukraine."