The Kremlin is sending out lists of Ukrainians to 'imprison, forcibly depart, or disappear' as it tries to keep control of captured land in Ukraine

• Kremlin officials are sending out lists of Ukrainians to imprison and deport, the US assesses.
• The State Department said Ukrainians are being targeted for Russia's "filtration operations."

Top Kremlin officials are sending out lists to Russian forces of Ukrainian civilians targeted for a sprawling network of detention and deportation facilities, the US State Department said Wednesday.

Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters at a briefing that over the course of Russia's unprovoked war, Russian President Vladimir Putin has relied on infrastructure, technology, and transportation to detain hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian civilians through what the US refers to as "filtration operations."

The filtration system is "a massive campaign that the Kremlin has launched to imprison, forcibly depart or disappear those Ukrainian citizens Moscow decides could be a potential threat to their control over Ukraine," Patel said, adding that the US has information that officials close to Putin are overseeing and coordinating the operation.

"We are further aware that the Russian presidential administration officials are providing lists of Ukrainians to be targeted for filtration and receiving reports of the scope and progress of operations," Patel said.

The State Department assesses that Moscow believes the filtration network is "crucial" to its efforts to maintain influence over territory it currently controls in eastern and southern Ukraine.

In Russian-controlled territory, Putin's troops and their proxies — like Moscow-backed separatists — are using technology to support filtration efforts, Patel said. This technology includes online databases, biometric data collection, facial recognition software, and tracking and monitoring of cell phones belonging to Ukrainian civilians.

Throughout the war, Ukrainians have described experiences in Russia's filtration network — saying they have been fingerprinted and forced to surrender their phones, told to strip and sleep on the floor, and subjected to interrogation.

Ukrainian and Western officials have also accused Russian forces of deporting civilians from captured areas to places deep within Russia. During Wednesday's briefing, Patel showed reporters a map with arrows noting how Ukrainians have been sent to northern, central, and eastern Russia — thousands of miles away.

Last month, researchers from Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab — with State Department support — published a report documenting at least 21 facilities that are part of Russia's filtration system in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk People's Republic, which is territory governed by Moscow-backed pro-Russia separatists.

The filtration system contains registration, holding, interrogation, and detention facilities for Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war, according to the researchers, who said there is evidence that the system was created before Russia's February 24 invasion of Ukraine.