A photograph of the Russian military filtration’s camp in Naroulya, Belarus, published by a pro-Russian Telegram channel in early 2022.
The filtration camp where Vladyslav and other Ukrainians were taken could have been set up in any of these locations. But the breakthrough in locating the site came from an unexpected source: Russian television.
‘A Propaganda Picture’
On March 22, 2022, the Kremlin-loyal Russian television network NTV aired a report about Ukrainian soldiers who had been captured. The report painted a humane portrait of the invading Russian forces, with Ukrainian soldiers shown undergoing medical treatment and routine processing.
The report made no mention of where the soldiers were being held. But journalists tracked down one of the captured Ukrainians shown in the segment, Lysenko, who said he had been taken to Naroulya and had heard “constant screaming” from civilians he said were being beaten there.
He described the NTV report as a “propaganda picture.”
“They didn’t show how civilians were interrogated there,” Lysenko said.
Similar to Vladyslav and the Ukrainian soldier who requested anonymity, Lysenko described the place he was held in Naroulya as “maybe some kind of former collective farm or tractor base.”
Left: Bohad Lysenko shown being carried on a stretcher in the March 2022 NTV report filmed at the Naroulya filtration camp. Right: a recent photo of Lysenko in Kyiv.
Reporters sent a link to the NTV report to both Vladyslav and the Ukrainian soldier. They confirmed the captured soldiers were shown at the same “collective farm” where they had been held.
Thanks in part to a unique building with a destroyed roof shown in the NTV segment, as well as military tents seen on several videos, reporters analyzing Planet Labs satellite imagery were able to establish that the report had been filmed on Kamsamolskaya Street in Naroulya on territory owned at the time by a company called Pripyat Alliance.
The state-owned company’s ultimate owner is the Belarusian Republican Union of Consumer Societies (Belkoopsoyuz), which is overseen by Lukashenka’s Council of Ministers.
Reached by telephone and asked about the filtration camp, Pripyat Alliance director Zinaida Mirutenka referred questions to the head of the Naroulya district’s executive committee, Uladzimer Antonenka, a former military officer who worked in Lukashenka’s security services.
Reached by phone and asked about the filtration camp, Antonenka said, “You have the wrong number” and hung up.
‘They Were Tortured There’
Polekhina, the human rights lawyer with Sich, said one of her clients was a 24-year-old man who was detained along with his father by Russian forces outside Kyiv in March 2022 and was “forcibly deported” to Naroulya, where both men were “held in a filtration camp.”
“The father testifies that they were tortured there,” Polekhina said.
A screenshot from the March 2022 report by the Kremlin-loyal Russian television network NTV shows Ukrainian soldiers being held at the filtration camp in Naroulya, Belarus.
Such forced deportations themselves may constitute a violation of the Geneva Conventions, according to The Reckoning Project, a Ukrainian-American organization chronicling human rights abuses in Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Reports of torture and abuse by Russian forces in Naroulya began surfacing within months of Russia’s February 2022 invasion.
Iryna Badanova, an expert with the Ukrainian military’s coordination group for prisoner release, said in a July 2022 interview that Naroulya was the site of “a filtration camp where the greatest abuse against civilian hostages occurs.”
“I am sure that Belarus will also be held accountable,” Badanova told the Ukrainian media outlet Suspilne Dnipro.
Yahodynska, meanwhile, says she heard from someone who had spent more than a year in prison with her elder son in Russia that he had not been charged with a crime.
“He said [my] son was being treated as a witness,” Yahodynska said.
More than two years after her son’s detention and forcible deportation to Russia via Naroulya, Yahodynska says she has no other information about his condition or whereabouts.
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Publish date : 2024-11-28 11:09:00
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