The Ukrainians were taken away from the border in an unknown direction.

In recent days, more than a thousand people, mostly Ukrainians, have gathered on the Russian side near the Russian-Estonian border, whose entry into Estonia was prevented by the Russian authorities, delaying border procedures. 

According to Estonian Interior Minister Lauri Läänemetsa, the Russians took these people to an unknown destination.

“Earlier, a little more than a thousand people were waiting at the border, but today they are no longer there – they were put on trucks and taken away. We do not know where they were taken. The Police and Border Guard Department is currently working to obtain this information,” he added.

These people were waiting for the opportunity to cross the border for several days. Läänemets said Russia could send people en masse to illegally cross the border. The border service uses drones to find out if the Russian Federation is doing this.

If this happens, Estonia will not be able to assume that all these people are Ukrainian refugees, the minister said.

“Of course, everyone else will be included in this crowd, citizens of the Russian Federation, all kinds of agents and other people,” he said.

He admitted that if Russia takes these people to a site unprepared for legal border crossing, a physical barrier will be put up there. People will either be redirected to the border crossing, or a temporary checkpoint will be set up.

According to the minister, Estonia has also established contact with the Ukrainian embassy to check the biographies of arriving people. Now Estonia lets people in even with a copy of a Ukrainian passport, but Russia has room for all sorts of fakes. Therefore, there are people on the border who talk with the arrivals and try to identify those who lie about their origin and motivation.

Ukrainians in Russia

Thousands of Ukrainian citizens were forcibly taken by the Russians from the occupied territories to Russia after the start of a full-scale invasion in February. In particular, at the end of March, they staged a mass deportation of Ukrainians from Mariupol and other occupied settlements, first to the “LPR” and “DPR”, and then, after filtering, to Russia.

These people, as well as those who left the occupied territories for the Russian Federation on their own, often try to return to Ukraine. To do this, Ukrainians choose routes through Belarus and Poland or through Estonia.

A new flow of Ukrainians wishing to leave Russia for Europe began with the holding of so-called referendums on the annexation of these regions to the Russian Federation in the occupied territories of Ukraine and the subsequent announcement by Vladimir Putin of an attempt to annex these territories. In particular, because of the threat of mobilization of the local population into the Russian army. Queues formed on the borders of the Russian Federation with Estonia and Latvia.

(C)UNIAN 2022