Ukraine Accuses Russia of Taking Civilian as Hostages Back to Moscow
DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Ukraine
Amid the Russian invasion, Ukrainian officials have accused the attacking forces of essentially taking hostages back to Moscow to be used as pawns in an effort to pressure their government.
The Associated Press reported Thursday that officials from both Ukraine and Russia acknowledge some 402,000 people had been relocated to Russia from Ukraine.
While Ukraine's ombudsperson monitoring human rights, Lyudmyla Denisova, said those people could be used as "hostages" to pressure the country to relent as it defends itself from attack, Russia insists the people actually wanted to leave Ukraine.
The number of those relocated includes 84,000 children, per the AP.
Meanwhile, Paris-based nonprofit Reporters Without Borders (RSF) alleged Friday that Russians have been taking reporters and their family members captive in "attempts to make Ukrainian journalists cooperate."
"Ever since the start of the war in Ukraine, the Russian armed forces have been bullying and threatening journalists and local media in the conquered territories to prevent them reporting the facts and get them to spread Kremlin propaganda," the organization said in a statement. "Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns these acts of intimidation, which include abduction, and calls on the Russian authorities to stop harassing Ukrainian journalists."
Russian forces have also been blamed for taking at least one entire Ukrainian city — Chernihiv — hostage by cutting off its access to the capital city of Kyiv.
The Guardian reported Wednesday that approximately 150,000 people were stuck in Chernihiv after Russia bombed a bridge across the Desna River (thereby impeding access to Kyiv or to humanitarian aid). Officials told citizens stuck there to ration their water.
In a statement released last week, Denisova, Ukraine's ombudsperson, said Chernihiv "remains completely cut off from the capital. The occupiers bombed the bridge across the River Desna, through which we transported humanitarian aid to the city and evacuated civilians."
Denisova said Chernihiv "has no electricity, water, heat and almost no gas, infrastructure is destroyed."
"According to local residents, the occupiers are compiling lists of civilians for the 'evacuation' to Lgov [a Russian locality]," she continued. "The racists, cutting off Chernihiv from the capital, turned its inhabitants into hostages."
In Mariupol, another besieged Ukrainian city, the city council said Saturday that "several thousand" residents had been forcibly taken to Russia, CNN reported.
According to the network, the city issued a statement in which it claimed "the occupiers illegally took people from the Livoberezhny district and from the shelter in the sports club building, where more than a thousand people (mostly women and children) were hiding from the constant bombing."
The statement added that some of those residents were taken to camps, where Russians checked their phones and documents, then to remote cities in Russia, per CNN.
Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilian sites, despite reports otherwise, and has mounted a counter public relations narrative of its own — suggesting Ukraine was armed with biological weapons, for example.
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Meanwhile Russia's attack on Ukraine continues after their forces launched a large-scale invasion on Feb. 24 — the first major land conflict in Europe in decades.
Details of the fighting change by the day, but hundreds of civilians have already been reported dead or wounded, including children. Millions of Ukrainians have also fled, the United Nations says.
"You don't know where to go, where to run, who you have to call. This is just panic," Liliya Marynchak, a 45-year-old teacher in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, told PEOPLE of the moment her city was bombed — one of numerous accounts of bombardment by the Russians.
The invasion, ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, has drawn condemnation around the world and increasingly severe economic sanctions against Russia.
With NATO forces massing in the region around Ukraine, various countries have also pledged aid or military support to the resistance. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for peace talks — so far unsuccessful — while urging his country to fight back.
Putin insists Ukraine has historic ties to Russia and he is acting in the best security interests of his country. Zelenskyy vowed not to bend.
"Nobody is going to break us, we're strong, we're Ukrainians," he told the European Union in a speech in the early days of the fighting, adding, "Life will win over death. And light will win over darkness."
The Russian attack on Ukraine is an evolving story, with information changing quickly. Follow PEOPLE's complete coverage of the war here, including stories from citizens on the ground and ways to help.
