Russian troops in Mariupol, southern Ukraine, are preparing to soon close all entries and exits with the view of carrying out a “filtration” of the male population.
All movement in the besieged Black Sea port city will also be banned for a week from Monday (18 April) to carry out the filtering process that is already in operation – Petro Andriushchenko, advisor to Mariupol’s mayor, said on Telegram.
He said: “During this time, 100% of the city’s remaining male population will be ‘filtered.’ To this end, they will all be moved to Novoazovsk [a town closer to the border with Russia]. Some of the people are going to be mobilised to the Russian occupation corps, some will be forcibly deployed to clear the rubble, and those classified as unreliable will be isolated.”
Meanwhile, Moscow announced that almost 100 Ukrainian citizens from Izium in the Kharkiv region have been deported to Russian territory. “Their destination is the Belgorod region,” Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported the Russian defence ministry as saying.
