As many as 500,000 Ukrainians are believed to have been brought into Russia, according to estimates from Ukrainian and Russian officials.
However, the Ukrainian officials maintain the Ukrainians are being deported by Russian troops in the country, while Russian officials claim those entering Russia are seeking refuge from the war, according to Current Time TV, a Russian language news outlet based in Poland.
Ukraine's deputy prime minister, Irina Vereshchuk, said hundreds of thousands of people were forcibly taken out of the country to Russia, the Current Time report said, according to a translation.
And Sergey Orlov, deputy mayor of Mariupol said, "We are dealing with deportation, there is no other way to call it. In those areas of the city that Russia has temporarily occupied, residents are being forced to evacuate in the direction of the 'DNR' [Donetsk People’s Republic]."
"It happens in different ways," he said. "For example, soldiers open a basement, a bomb shelter and say, 'You have 10 minutes. After that the house will be bombed, evacuate!' "
The military points out a direction for those evacuating to leave.
"People walk five or six kilometers to the village of Lyapino," he said. "From there buses evacuate them to Sopino, Novoazovsk, Bezymenne. There they pass the so-called first camps, settlements. Storage camps, let's call them that.
"I know those who were not forced to leave, who went there on their own. There are far fewer such stories, but they do exist."
The Russian state news agency RIA Novosti is said to have reported "that half a million people were taken from the self-proclaimed breakaway areas of Ukraine and from Ukrainian-controlled territories to Russia. Moscow says the Ukrainians sought refuge from the war on Russian territory of their own free will."
Meanwhile, NPR reported that Ivan Fedorov, mayor of the Ukrainian town of Melitopol was kidnapped by Russian forces in early March and held for five days.
On March 11 Russian forces put a black bag over Fedorov's head and took him away.
He said he is now convinced he was only released because his kidnapping was caught on camera. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had also called for his release.
Fedorov said he believes about 29 other elected officials are still being held by Russian forces.
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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