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Wagner mercenaries have begun deporting residents of the Bakhmut suburbs they control, the Ukrainian National Resistance Center (NRC) – an official body – said on Thursday.
“Militants forcefully take local residents to captured areas of Luhansk region, where they are filtered. After that, they are deported to Perm (Russia) and other remote regions of the Russian Federation,” the center said.
CNN cannot independently verify this claim.
“Locals are deported under the intention of evacuation. After that, they are assimilated in remote areas of the empire, because they are now dependent on the occupiers,” the NRC said.
Serhii Cherevatyi, spokesman for the Eastern Grouping of the Armed Forces, addressed these claims on Ukrainian television Friday.
“This is one of the regular crimes of the Russian Federation. There is nothing to be surprised at, because the entire military structure of the Russian Federation is a criminal … All of this will be recorded, documented and handed over to the relevant national and international jurisdictions,” he said.
