Shortly after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, reports of so-called 'filtration' camps in the country’s east began to emerge. Since then, thousands of Ukrainian civilians have passed through the centres, where Russian forces hunt for Ukrainian “nationalists”. This means that many of those being processed are subject to interrogations, strip-searches or worse.
In early April, Vitaly and his wife and one-year-old daughter were offered a safe passage out of Mariupol. The Russians were going to evacuate them and other civilians by bus to Nikolske, a small industrial town controlled by pro-Russian forces around 20 kilometres northwest of the besieged city.
