The occupiers are partially removing residents and looted property from the captured territories of the Zaporizhzhya region, local authorities and the military say.
Residents of the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhya region report cases where the Russian military tries to leave the territory they captured under the guise of civilians whom the Russians allowed to evacuate. Ivan Fedorov, the mayor of occupied Melitopol, told about this on May 7 on the air of a telethon.
According to Fedorov, in general, it is now possible to talk only about the evacuation of local residents, "and enemy troops, on the contrary, are increasingly moving to the Zaporizhzhya front line."
"But there are soldiers who try to escape from the temporarily occupied territories. Yes, our residents report frequent cases when Russian soldiers change into civilian clothes. One of the purposes why they do this is to flee from the temporarily occupied territory," the mayor said . .
Therefore, according to him, the Russians have now added another filter when leaving the temporarily occupied territory - they check all civilians in cars "and try to prevent the cars from being disguised as racist military personnel."
At the same time, Fedorov noted that the enemy began to leave the administrative buildings of the Melitopol district. In particular, the occupiers removed the equipment from the Melitopol colony and the building of Ukrtelecom, which they captured, and also began to leave several premises where they had a command post. Also in Melitopol and Berdyansk, according to him, "Mira" Russian stores "almost closed".
The head of Zaporizhzhya RMA, Yury Malashko, also stated in an interview with Radio Liberty that the Russians are mass-deporting civilians from the occupied territories to the Russian Federation, as well as local collaborators. The video was published on May 8 in his Telegram.
According to Malashko, the occupiers intimidate the residents of the occupied territories with active military actions and take them on buses to the Russian Federation through the occupied Crimea or Donetsk region. Many were forcibly "evacuated" by the occupiers in the Russian Federation.
After a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian troops captured part of the Zaporizhzhya region.
Zaporizhzhya itself was not captured by the occupiers, but it and other settlements in the region are regularly shelled. In April 2023, dozens of Russian shelling and airstrikes were recorded every day in the region.
On May 5, the occupiers announced the "evacuation" of 18 front-line settlements in the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhya region. Because of this, car queues formed at the Chongar checkpoint on the administrative border with occupied Crimea.
Under the guise of evacuating civilians, the occupiers are mass-exporting looted goods from the Zaporizhzhya region, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported on May 7.
