Moscow: More than 1 million people, including nearly 200,000 children, have been taken from Ukraine to Russia since the Russian invasion began, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday, according to the state-owned news agency TASS.
Defense Ministry official Mikhail Mizintsev said those included 11,550 people, including 1,847 children, in the previous 24 hours, “without the participation of the Ukrainian authorities.”
He said those civilians “were evacuated to the territory of the Russian Federation from the dangerous regions” of Donetsk, Lugansk and other parts of Ukraine, according to the report. No details were provided on the location or circumstances of the moves.
Throughout the war, Ukraine has accused Moscow’s troops of taking civilians against their will to Russia or Russian-controlled areas, something the Kremlin has denied.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking Monday to Greek state TV ERT, said half a million Ukrainians have been “illegally taken to Russia, or other places, against their will.”